NEW DELHI: Pakistan has endorsed Beijing’s claim that it played a mediating role in the May 2025 India-Pakistan conflict that led to Op Sindoor. At a press briefing on Thursday, Pak Foreign Office spokesperson, Tahir Andrabi, said Chinese leaders were “in constant touch” with Pakistan’s leadership and had also made “certain contacts with the Indian leadership in those three, four days in May, 6th to 10th and maybe prior to that and after that” “So, I think those contacts, which were characterised by a very positive diplomatic exchanges, they did constitute in bringing down temperatures and trying to bring peace and security in the region. So, I’m sure that the Chinese characterisation of mediation is correct,” he said. Pak’s belated assertion on conflict pause raises brows Islamabad’s statement, the first-ever about Beijing’s alleged role in brokering the pause in the four-day conflict with India, should raise eyebrows because of the lag and because it had so far given the credit for suspension of hostilities exclusively to US President Donald Trump. India had maintained that the military pause followed a request from Pakistan’s DGMO to its Indian counterpart, and not the result of any third-party intervention. It dismissed Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s claim that Beijing had mediated during the crisis. Andrabi said Pakistan shared China’s assessment, calling the efforts “diplomacy for peace, for prosperity, for security” and that “this has been the hallmark of a number of international efforts that went into resolving that conflict in those three-four fateful days”. Pakistan, he added, “firmly” supported China’s position as stated by its foreign minister. China’s claim mimics repeated assertions by US President Trump that Washington played a decisive role in ending the confrontation between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
