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India and Pakistan hold talks aimed at extending ceasefire

Police personnel in the city of Jammu, in Indian-controlled Kashmir, May 11, 2025. The fragile truce between India and Pakistan appeared to be largely holding on its first full day after some initial skirmishing, as both countries turned on Sunday to making the case that they had come out on top in the four-day conflict. (New York Times)
Mujib Mashal and Hari Kumar New York Times

NEW DELHI - Indian and Pakistani military leaders held talks Monday intended to extend a tenuous ceasefire that has halted the most expansive fighting in decades between the two nuclear-armed states.

A sense of normalcy began to return on both sides of their border, two days after a U.S.-mediated truce ended their rapidly escalating military conflict.

Stock markets in both countries jumped on the first day of trading since the agreement was reached. India announced the resumption of civilian flights at more than 30 airports in the north of the country, while in Pakistan, authorities said all airports were open.

The situation along the two countries’ extensive boundary, however, remained uncertain, with tens of thousands of people still displaced. There were no reports of a major breach Sunday night, the second evening of the ceasefire. But on Monday, brief drone sightings and explosions were reported in parts of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

For most of last week, the two countries were engaged in intense fighting that brought cross-border shelling, drone warfare and claims from both sides that they had inflicted damage on the other’s military bases.

As called for in the agreement that stopped the armed conflict, military leaders from both sides on Monday discussed “issues related to continuing the commitment that both sides must not fire a single shot or initiate any aggressive and inimical action,” the Indian army said in a statement.

“It was also agreed that both sides consider immediate measures to ensure troop reduction from the borders and forward areas,” the statement said.

On Saturday, President Donald Trump announced that the two sides had agreed to a ceasefire with the help of U.S. diplomacy, continuing past patterns of outside mediation when tensions rise between India and Pakistan.

The halt in the fighting, the president said, averted what could have been a nuclear war that would have killed millions of people.

While the Pakistani side has publicly acknowledged the American role in brokering the truce, the Indian government has insisted in its statements that it was reached only bilaterally with Pakistan. Privately, Indian officials acknowledge the role of U.S. diplomacy but have pushed back against suggestions that trade or anything else was used as pressure.

The Indian government’s sensitivity over U.S. involvement reflects its efforts for several years to portray its dispute with Pakistan, especially over the contested territory of Kashmir, as a small issue that it can handle directly.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.