NEW DELHI: India insisted on Thursday that any engagement with Pakistan can only be bilateral, ruling out mediation by any third party on issues between the two countries.

External affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told a weekly media briefing that there could not be any talks with Pakistan as long as it continues backing terrorism against India.

Jaiswal responded to a question on US President Donald Trump’s claims about brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan by saying that the Indian side had already made it clear that the May 10 understanding on halting military actions was reached by the two countries.

“But at the same time, I would like to let you know that…our position [is] that any India-Pakistan engagement has to be bilateral,” he said, adding that “talks and terror don’t go together”.

On the issue of terrorism, New Delhi is “open to discussing the handing over to India of noted terrorists whose list was given to Pakistan some years ago”, he said.

Any bilateral discussion on Jammu and Kashmir will “only be on the vacation of illegally occupied Indian territory by Pakistan”, he said.

Jaiswal said the Indus Waters Treaty will “remain in abeyance until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism”. India had suspended the treaty as part of a raft of punitive diplomatic and economic measures announced a day after the Pahalgam terror attack of April 22 that killed 26 civilians.

“As our prime minister has said, water and blood cannot flow together. Trade and terror also cannot go together,” he said.