How Back Channels and American Mediators Rivals pulled off the edge

In a dramatic turn of events, US President Donald Trump went to social media on Saturday to announce that India and Pakistan – after four tense days of cross -border collisions – had agreed to a “Completely and immediately stops -furen”.

Behind the scenes, in addition to diplomatic backchans and regional players, American mediators were crucial to withdraw the nuclear arming rivals from the edge, experts say.

Hours after a ceasefish -the proof were India and Pakistan, however allegations of new violations – Underlines vulnerability.

India accused Pakistan of “repeated violations”, while Pakistan stated that it is committed to ceases -the fire, where his troops showed “responsibility and restraint”.

Before Trump’s cease it-fire announcement, India and Pakistan walked to what many feared could become a complete conflict.

After a deadly militant attack, 26 tourists killed in the Indian-judged Kashmir last month, launched India air strikes in Pakistan and Pakistan-added Kashmir-triggering days of aerial collisions, artillery-duels and, by Saturday morning, accusations of each other’s stones on each other’s stones on each other’s stones on each other’s stones on each other’s stones on each other’s stones on each other’s stones on each other’s stones on each other’s stones on each other’s stones on each other’s stones on each other’s stones on each other’s stones on each other’s stones on each other’s stones on each other’s stones on each other’s stones.

The rhetoric escalated sharply, whereby each country claimed to have caused severe damage as he thwarted the attacks of the other.

Tanvi Madan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC, says that the American Foreign Minister Marco Rubio on 9 May on May 9 “was perhaps the crucial point”.

“There is still much that we don’t know about the roles of various international actors, but it is clear in the past three days that at least three countries work to elicit -the US, of course, but also the UK and Saudi -Aarabia,” she says.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar told Pakistani media that “three dozen countries” were involved in diplomacy – including Turkey, Saudi -Aarabia and the US.

“A question is whether, if this call had come earlier – immediately after the initial Indian strikes, when Pakistan already claimed some Indian losses and an off -disaster was available – it might have prevented further escalation,” says Madan.

This is not the first time that American mediation has helped an India -Pakistan crisis.

In his memoirs, Former State Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed He woke up to speak with an unnamed “Indian counterpart”, who feared that Pakistan was preparing nuclear weapons during the distance of 2019.

Former Indian high commissioner of Pakistan Ajay Bisaria later wrote that Pompeo exceeded the risk of nuclear escalation and the American role in calming the conflict.

But diplomats say there is little doubt that the US played an important role in harming the crisis this time.

“The US was the most prominent external player. The last time Pompeo claimed that they have averted the Nuclear War. Although they will probably overdo it, they may have played the primary diplomatic role, perhaps the positions of Delhi in Islamabad reinforced,” Mr. Bisaria told the BBC on Saturday.

But in the beginning the US seemed remarkably distant.

While tensions flared up, the American vice president JD Vance said on Thursday that the US would not be involved in a war that is “fundamentally none of our affairs.”

“However, we cannot control these countries. Fundamentally, India has its complaints with Pakistan … America cannot tell the Indians to put their arms. We cannot tell the Pakistani to lay their arms. And so we continue to follow this thing through diplomatic channels,” he said in a television interview.

In the meantime, President Trump said earlier this week: “I know both (leaders of India and Pakistan) very well, and I want them to work it out … I want to see them stop, and hopefully they can stop now”.

Ejaz Haider, a Lahore -based defense analyst, told the BBC that this seemed to be the only difference with previous occasions.

“The American role was a continuation of patterns from the past, but with one important difference – this time they initially kept hands – off and saw the crisis unfold instead of jumping in immediately. Only when they saw how it played, did they step in to manage it,” Mr. Haider told the BBC.

Experts in Pakistan say that as the escalation cycle sent, Pakistan sent “double signals”, to give himself military revenge while announcing a National Command Authority (NCA) meeting – a clear memory of the nuclear overhang.

The NCA checks and makes operational decisions with regard to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

This was around the time that the American State Secretary Marco Rubio entered.

“The US was indispensable. This outcome would not have happened without the efforts of secretary Rubio,” said Ashley J Tellis, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the BBC said.

What also helped was the deeper tires of Washington with Delhi.

The personal report of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Trump, plus the wider strategic and economic interests of the US, gave the US government diplomatic leverage to push both nuclear armed rivals into de-escalation.

Indian diplomats see three important peace numbers that took place this time, just like after Pulwama – Balakot in 2019:

• US and UK busy
• Saudi Mediation, with the Saudi Junior Minister of Foreign Affairs who visit both capitals
• The Direct India-Pakistan channel between the two National Security Advisors (NSAs)

Despite the shifting of global priorities and a hands-off attitude in the beginning, the US eventually came in as the indispensable mediator between the nuclear rivals of South Asia.

Whether it is over by his own officials or investigated by Delhi and Islamabad, experts believe that the role of the US as a crisis manager remains just as essential – and so complicated – as always.

Doubts, however, remain stuck about the sustainability of the ceasefire -the fire after the events of Saturday, in which some Indian media reported that it was essentially mediated by high military officers of the two countries -not the US.

“This ceasefire will certainly be a fragile. It was very quickly created in the midst of heavenly tensions. India seems to have interpreted it differently than the US and Pakistan,” Michael Kugelman, an analyst of foreign policy, told the BBC.

“Also because it was so hasty, the agreement can miss the right guarantees and guarantees that they would need at such a tense moment.”