In­dia and Pak­istan on Sat­ur­day agreed to a cease­fire fol­low­ing U.S.-led talks to end the most se­ri­ous mil­i­tary con­fronta­tion be­tween the nu­clear-armed ri­vals in decades.

The deal fol­lows weeks of clash­es, mis­sile and drone strikes across their bor­ders that were trig­gered by a gun mas­sacre of tourists last month that In­dia blames on Pak­istan, which de­nies the charge. Dozens of civil­ians have been killed on both sides.

The first word of the truce came from U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, who post­ed on his Truth So­cial plat­form that In­dia and Pak­istan had agreed to a full and im­me­di­ate cease­fire. “Con­grat­u­la­tions to both Coun­tries on us­ing Com­mon Sense and Great In­tel­li­gence. Thank you for your at­ten­tion to this mat­ter!”

Pak­istani For­eign Min­is­ter Ishaq Dar an­nounced the truce on Geo News. He said Sau­di Ara­bia and Turkey played an im­por­tant role in fa­cil­i­tat­ing the deal.

In­di­an For­eign Sec­re­tary Vikram Mis­ri said the head of mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions from both coun­tries spoke Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon.

“It was agreed be­tween them that both sides would stop all fir­ing and mil­i­tary ac­tion on land, and in the air and sea. In­struc­tions have been giv­en on both sides to give ef­fect to this un­der­stand­ing.” The top mil­i­tary lead­ers would speak again on May 12, Mis­ri added.

The deal is ex­pect­ed to bring a swift end to the mil­i­tary es­ca­la­tion.

In­dia said it tar­get­ed Pak­istani air bases ear­ly Sat­ur­day af­ter Is­lam­abad fired sev­er­al high-speed mis­siles at mil­i­tary and civil­ian in­fra­struc­ture in the coun­try’s Pun­jab state. Pak­istan said it in­ter­cept­ed most mis­siles and re­spond­ed with re­tal­ia­to­ry strikes.

In­dia says it gave a be­fit­ting re­ply to Pak­istani ac­tion

Ear­li­er Sat­ur­day, In­dia’s mil­i­tary held a press brief­ing in New Del­hi, say­ing Pak­istan tar­get­ed health fa­cil­i­ties and schools at its three air bases in In­di­an-con­trolled Kash­mir.

“Be­fit­ting re­ply has been giv­en to Pak­istani ac­tions,” said In­di­an Col. Sofiya Qureshi.

Pak­istan’s mil­i­tary said it used medi­um-range Fateh mis­siles to hit an In­di­an mis­sile stor­age fa­cil­i­ty and air bases in the cities of Pathankot and Ud­ham­pur. Army spokesman Lt. Gen. Ah­mad Sharif said the coun­try’s air force as­sets were safe fol­low­ing the In­di­an as­sault.

The As­so­ci­at­ed Press could not in­de­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fy all the ac­tions at­trib­uted to Pak­istan or In­dia.

U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio said that he and Vice Pres­i­dent JD Vance had en­gaged with se­nior of­fi­cials from both coun­tries over the past 48 hours.

They in­clud­ed Prime Min­is­ters Naren­dra Mo­di and She­hbaz Sharif, In­dia’s Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sub­rah­manyam Jais­hankar, and the Pak­istani Chief of Army Staff Asim Mu­nir.

Ru­bio said the two gov­ern­ments agreed to “start talks on a broad set of is­sues at a neu­tral site.”

In­di­an strikes hit Pak­istani air bases

Ten­sions have soared since the at­tack at a pop­u­lar tourist site in In­dia-con­trolled Kash­mir left 26 civil­ians dead, most­ly In­di­an Hin­du tourists, on April 22.

They have trad­ed strikes and heavy cross-bor­der fire for days.

In­di­an mis­siles Sat­ur­day tar­get­ed Nur Khan air base in the gar­ri­son city of Rawalpin­di, near the cap­i­tal Is­lam­abad, Murid air base in Chak­w­al city and Rafiqui air base in the Jhang dis­trict of east­ern Pun­jab province, ac­cord­ing to Pak­istan’s mil­i­tary spokesman.

There were no im­me­di­ate re­ports of the strike or its af­ter­math from res­i­dents in the dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed Rawalpin­di.

Though Pak­ista­nis had ini­tial­ly cel­e­brat­ed their army’s re­sponse to In­dia, they were lat­er ju­bi­lant about the truce, say­ing it was a mo­ment of na­tion­al pride and re­lief af­ter days of ten­sion.

In Is­lam­abad, Zubai­da Bibi ex­pressed her joy at the restora­tion of peace with In­dia.

“War brings noth­ing but suf­fer­ing,” she said. “We are hap­py that calm is re­turn­ing. It feels like Eid to me. We have won.”

Ex­plo­sions in In­dia-con­trolled Kash­mir

Fol­low­ing the an­nounce­ment of Pak­istani re­tal­i­a­tion, res­i­dents in In­di­an-con­trolled Kash­mir said they heard loud ex­plo­sions at mul­ti­ple places, in­clud­ing the two big cities of Sri­na­gar and Jam­mu and the gar­ri­son town of Ud­ham­pur.

“Ex­plo­sions that we are hear­ing to­day are dif­fer­ent from the ones we heard the last two nights dur­ing drone at­tacks,” said Shesh Paul Vaid, the re­gion’s for­mer top po­lice of­fi­cial and Jam­mu res­i­dent. “It looks like a war here.”

Vaid said ex­plo­sions were heard from ar­eas with mil­i­tary bases, adding it ap­peared that army sites were tar­get­ed. Res­i­dents liv­ing near Sri­na­gar city’s air­port, which is al­so an air base, said they were rat­tled by the ex­plo­sions and boom­ing sound of jets.

“I was al­ready awake, but the ex­plo­sions jolt­ed my kids out of their sleep. They start­ed cry­ing,” said Sri­na­gar res­i­dent Mo­hammed Yasin, adding he heard at least two ex­plo­sions.

Build­ings were de­stroyed or dam­aged in In­di­an-con­trolled Kash­mir, where pow­er­ful blasts ripped off roofs, win­dows and walls and left homes rid­dled with holes.

Vil­lagers and res­cuers in a dis­trict of Pak­istan-con­trolled Kash­mir sift­ed through the rub­ble of homes hit by overnight In­di­an shelling on Fri­day as peo­ple car­ried the dead. Oth­ers sur­veyed the ru­ins.

Omar Ab­dul­lah, In­di­an-con­trolled Kash­mir’s top elect­ed of­fi­cial, wel­comed the cease­fire. He said: “Had it hap­pened two or three days ear­li­er, we might have avoid­ed the blood­shed and the loss of pre­cious lives.” —IS­LAM­ABAD (AP)

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Sto­ry by RI­AZAT BUTT, AI­JAZ HUS­SAIN and RA­JESH ROY | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Ai­jaz Hus­sain re­port­ed from Sri­na­gar, In­dia, and Ra­jesh Roy re­port­ed from New Del­hi.

As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers al­so con­tribut­ing to this re­port in­clud­ed Sheikh Saaliq in New Del­hi; Babar Dog­ar in La­hore, Pak­istan; Asim Tan­veer in Mul­tan, Pak­istan; Mu­nir Ahmed in Is­lam­abad; and Ri­az Khan in Pe­shawar, Pak­istan.