India in an official statement welcomed the Pakistan-brokered temporary ceasefire after a brutal six-week war in the West Asia region, with the government also expressing hope that the ceasefire will bring lasting peace in the region. Emphasizing that the conflict has already caused immense suffering to the people and disrupted global energy supplies and trade networks, the Indian Government said it looked forward to uninterrupted freedom of navigation and global flow of commerce through the Strait of Hormuz. “As we have consistently advocated before, de-escalation, dialogue and diplomacy are necessary to bring an early end to the ongoing conflict,” the External Affairs Ministry said in a cautious statement, focusing more on the outcome than the means used to achieve it. Going a step further, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal expressed hope that developments in West Asia would give a boost to peace efforts in Ukraine as well.He said, “India has always been in favor of peace. We welcome all steps leading to peace and stability.” There was no formal acknowledgment of the key mediating role played by Pakistan, which was credited by both President Donald Trump and Iran for the success. However, official sources said India sees this development, which includes Iran’s commitment to open the Strait of Hormuz during the 2-week ceasefire, as a potential catalyst for progress in talks for long-term peace in the region. Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has announced that Islamabad will host talks between the US and Iran starting on April 10. Apart from ensuring the safety of the 10 million strong Indian diaspora in the Gulf region, India’s biggest priority over the past several weeks has been to secure safe passage for its LPG tankers through the key energy route to prevent any supply disruption. However, India would be wary of any negative fallout on its own downgraded relations with Pakistan from greater international legitimacy for Islamabad, which could lead to a ceasefire. India says Pakistan is the source of global terrorism and refuses to engage with Islamabad unless it takes concrete and irreversible action against groups responsible for cross-border terrorism. Following the ceasefire, Trump also indicated that China might also have played a role in peace talks by urging Tehran to engage with the US. However, for India, despite close ties with both sides and its position as an important stakeholder in the Gulf, active mediation was not an option in line with its decades-old disdain for third-party mediation, especially in relations with Islamabad in which it has always emphasized bilateralism. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar spoke on this at an all-party meeting last month, where he said that unlike Pakistan, India does not have a history of acting as a mediator between countries. He mentioned Pakistan’s role in facilitating secret backchannel talks between the US and China in 1971.