Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Thursday dismissed the idea of mediation between India and Pakistan, arguing that it is not viable because the two countries are not equals. He said Pakistan is a “revisionist power” that harbours terrorists and seeks to disrupt existing geopolitical arrangements.
Shashi Tharoor speaks at the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington, DC, on June 5, 2025.(AFP)
Speaking at the council on foreign relations in Washington, Tharoor said, “Mediation is not a term that we are particularly willing to entertain. I’ll tell you why not. The fact is that this implies, even when you say things like broker or whatever, you’re implying an equivalence which simply doesn’t exist,” news agency PTI reported.
The Congress MP’s comments come amid repeated claims by US President Donald Trump that he helped in “mediating” tensions between India and Pakistan last month.
Since May 10, Trump has said multiple times on separate occasions that he helped broker a ceasefire between the two countries after “a long night” of talks. He has also claimed he offered both sides the prospect of increased trade with the US in exchange for peace.
Meanwhile, Tharoor went on to say, “There is no equivalence between a state that is a status quo power that just wants to be left alone by its neighbours and a revisionist power that wants to upset the geopolitical arrangements that have existed for the last three-quarters of a century. There is no equivalence possible in these cases, and in these circumstances, to suggest that you can mediate between two unequals is not possible,” he added.
When asked how he would describe the American role in the situation, Tharoor said he was “guessing to some degree” but believed Washington stayed engaged with both sides during the crisis.
“Certainly my government received a number of calls at high levels from the US government, and we appreciated their concern and their interest,” he said. “Our assumption is that’s where, because that’s the side that needed persuading to stop this process, that may well have been where their messages really had the greatest effect. But that’s guesswork on my part. I don’t know what they said to the Pakistanis.”
The Congress leader who is leading a multi-party delegation on Operation Sindoor, stressed that India sees no similarity between “terrorists and their victims.”
“There is no equivalence between a country that provides safe haven to terrorism, and a country that’s a flourishing multi-party democracy that’s trying to get on with its business,” he said.
Trump claims credit for India, Pakistan ceasefire again
Trump, during a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Thursday, again said he was “very proud” of helping to stop the India-Pakistan conflict.
“I spoke to some very talented people on both sides, very good people on both sides,” Trump said, adding that he warned them the US wouldn’t make trade deals if the conflict continued.
“You know what, I got that war stopped…Now, am I going to get credit? I’m not going to get credit for anything. They don’t give me credit for anything. But nobody else could have done it. I stopped it. I was very proud of that.”
India and Pakistan conflict that started on May 7 after India’s military response to April 22 Pahalgam terror attack ended on May 10 after four days of cross-border drone and missile strikes.
India has firmly maintained that the agreement to end hostilities was reached through direct military-to-military talks between the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of both nations.