India asked for no questions at the G7. Trump took them anyway.

US ambassador Sergio Gor has given a behind-the-scenes account of the Modi-Trump meeting at the G7 in June.

He was speaking at the Economic Times World Leaders Forum. The meeting was on 17 June in Evian, France. It was the first time the two leaders had sat together in 16 months.

Gor said President Trump asked him, before the session, whether India had any requests. The Ministry of External Affairs had one, he said: bring the media in, but do not take questions. Gor said he passed that on. Trump said it was no problem.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi read his opening remarks from a sheet of paper. Trump then looked at the cameras and asked if there were any questions. Gor said that "opened everything up". The session ran for 45 minutes.

Reporters asked about Indian seafarers, the Strait of Hormuz, and India-US trade. Gor said Trump's answer on trade was that as long as his friend the prime minister was there, India would get what it needed.

The quote also lands in a fight India has been having with the European press. In Amsterdam and Oslo, local reporters asked travelling MEA officials why the prime minister does not take unscripted questions. Gor has now said New Delhi asked Washington for the same arrangement, and that Trump did not keep it.

This is a protocol story with a habit behind it.

Indian prime ministers have not done regular press conferences in years. The MEA can live with cameras if the questions are off. A US president who likes a live argument is a bad partner for that model. Gor has made the mismatch public, and he has done it in Trump's voice.

If the only ask that survived the briefing was "no questions", that is what India thought the meeting was for. Trade, seafarers and Hormuz had to wait for a president who forgot the brief.

Maybe Gor was burnishing Trump as a man who cannot be stage-managed. Maybe he was just telling a room a story he found funny. Either way, the MEA now has an ambassador on record about how it wanted that meeting to look.

Watch whether South Block answers Gor, or lets the quote sit. Watch whether the next Modi-Trump appearance is billed as remarks only, and whether that holds past the first minute.