The United States on Tuesday said that it encourages “direct communication” between India and Pakistan and commends Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Shehbaz Sharif for choosing “the path of peace”.

This comes amid a pushback from India following US President Donald Trump’s earlier claim that he pressured India and Pakistan into accepting a ceasefire by threatening to stop trade with both countries. He reiterated the claim that it was his administration that brokered a “full and immediate ceasefire” between India and Pakistan.

The US president had also claimed that his administration stopped a nuclear conflict.

“I think it could have been a bad nuclear war,” Trump said on Monday. “Millions of people could have been killed.”

India has maintained that “the issue of trade did not come up” in any discussion between Indian and US leaders.

Besides, India’s External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal on Tuesday also said military action from India’s side was “entirely in the conventional domain” in response to Trump’s speculation about nuclear war.

On Tuesday, Thomas Pigott, the principal deputy spokesperson at the US state department, said that the decision by India and Pakistan to stop all firing after four days of military tensions reflected “strength, wisdom and fortitude”.

When asked whether US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had secured any commitment from Pakistani leaders to dismantle terrorist infrastructure during his calls with them, Pigott declined to comment.

“I’m not going to talk about private diplomatic conversations,” he said, while reiterating that the US welcomes the ceasefire.

The spokesperson also refrained from speculating on New Delhi refusing Washington’s offer to mediate.

On Saturday, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri announced the decision to stop military action minutes after Trump claimed on social media that India and Pakistan had agreed to the ceasefire. The US president had claimed that the ceasefire talks were mediated by Washington.

The US secretary of state had claimed on social media that New Delhi and Islamabad had agreed to “start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site”.

However, the Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcast had said that the decision to stop the firing was “worked out directly between the two countries”.

“There is no decision to hold talks on any other issue at any other place,” the ministry added.

The tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad had escalated on May 7 when the Indian military carried out strikes – codenamed Operation Sindoor – on what it claimed were terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The strikes were in response to the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, which killed 26 persons on April 22.

The Pakistan Army retaliated to Indian strikes by repeatedly shelling Indian villages along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. At least 22 Indian civilians and eight defence personnel were killed.

Pakistan claims 11 of its military personnel and 40 civilians were killed.

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