While US mediators, alongside diplomatic backchannels, prevented a bigger conflagration, President Trump's offer has put Delhi in a spot. "Obviously, it would not be welcome by the Indian side. It goes against our stated position for many years," Shyam Saran, a former Indian foreign secretary, tells the BBC.

Government and private schools in the Udhampur district and Bani, Basholi, Mahanpur, Bhaddu, Malhar, and Billawar zones of the Kathua district have been reopened today.

A top Indian envoy said the dispute over Kashmir is a bilateral issue with Pakistan, rejecting any external mediation on the matter despite the US saying it wanted to facilitate talks.

A series of military strikes last week by India and Pakistan brought the nuclear-armed rivals closer to a broader war.

Far from the missile strikes and drone combat that grabbed the world’s attention, ordinary Kashmiris suffer the heaviest toll of India and Pakistan’s confrontation.

India and Pakistan agreed to stop firing along their border on Saturday, bringing an end to the escalated tensions between the two arch-rivals after multiple strikes were launched against military bases.

Pakistan returned a captured border guard to India on Wednesday, in a fresh sign of detente after a ceasefire ended four days of conflict between the nuclear-armed rivals.

The neighbors have been in conflict over the disputed border region since their independence and partition in 1947.

NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) -India and Pakistan have stepped back from the brink of all-out war, with a nudge from the U.S., but New Delhi's aspirations as a global diplomatic power now face a key test after President Donald Trump offered to mediate on the dispute over Kashmir, analysts said.