Modi: India Has Only 'Paused' Military Action Against Pakistan

• PM Modi says India has only “paused” its military response to Pakistan; warns of retaliation “on its own terms” if provoked again.
• Ceasefire follows deadly missile exchanges and border shelling after India's retaliatory strike on Pakistan for the Pahagam Massacre.
• US President Trump claims credit for brokering ceasefire with help from Secretary Marco Rubio & VP JD Vance; India reopens 32 northern airports.

Narendra Modi has stated India has merely "paused" its military response to Pakistan and would "retaliate on its own terms" to any incursions, following a ceasefire that halted rising tensions between the two nations at the weekend.

In his first speech since hostilities broke out between India and Pakistan with both sides firing missiles at one another's main military bases and airfields on Saturday the Indian prime minister stated he was "monitoring every step of Pakistan".

US President Donald Trump declared the ceasefire between the two nations on Saturday, ending fears the two nuclear powers were racing towards full-scale war for the first time in decades.

India struck first against Pakistan on Wednesday in response to an April militant attack in Indian-held Kashmir that it accused Pakistan-backed militants of carrying out. It escalated into drone and missile attacks by both countries, and fatal shelling along the contested border that separates Kashmir.

Both Trump and Pakistani authorities attributed the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the vice-president, JD Vance, with facilitating peace between the two nations, following hours of ballistic negotiations with India and Pakistan. Pakistan People's Party supporters throw flower petals and celebrating ceasefire.
From missiles to ceasefire: how India and Pakistan pulled back from the brink.

But Modi did not mention the role of the US in the ceasefire at all. Instead he reiterated India's stance that it was Pakistan which first approached India's military operations head on Saturday for a ceasefire, and it was Pakistan which had appealed to the international community for assistance. In comments at the White House on Monday, Trump claimed the US had “stopped a nuclear conflict” in its interventions with India and Pakistan. He said: “I think it could have been a bad nuclear war, millions of people could have been killed. So I’m very proud of that”.

Modi’s speech also alluded to the nuclear threat that had hung over last week’s escalating tensions, adding that in any future conflict with Pakistan, India would not tolerate “nuclear blackmailing”. On Monday, Pakistan security officials said one of the terms of the ceasefire was an agreement that future talks would be held in a third country, with the United Arab Emirates floated as a possible venue.

Modi, in his address, referenced potential future talks but indicated that "if we talk to Pakistan, it will be about terrorism only it will be about Pakistan-occupied Kashmir".

By Monday, the tenuous ceasefire seemed set to endure. Across the line of control, the contested border demarcating Kashmir between India and Pakistan stood quiet. All the cross-border aggressions and shelling of the last week indicated no willingness to resume. India also re-opened 32 airports in north India that had been closed down as cross-border fighting intensified.

The Indian army stated in a statement on Sunday evening: "The night remained mostly peaceful all over Jammu and Kashmir, and other border areas along the international border". In a phone conversation between Pakistani and Indian military officials, the two nations also agreed to lowering the troops' presence at the border.

In Indian-controlled Kashmir, specialist teams were sent to border regions to evacuate unexploded bombs, as tens of thousands of villagers who had been resettled from border areas returned to their homes.