#Donald Trump# US President# United States# Narendra Modi# India# Pakistan# ceasefire# Operation Sindoor
The Hague/IBNS-CMEDIA: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday reiterated his claim to have brokered the ceasefire deal between India and Pakistan despite New Delhi’s repeated denial of any such assertions from The White House.
Speaking to reporters at the NATO Summit at The Hague, Netherlands, Trump said he ended the conflict “with a series of phone calls on trade”.
Trump said, “Maybe the most important of them all (wars) was India and Pakistan… I ended that with a series of phone calls on trade and said that look if you fight each other, we are not doing any trade deal…”
“The General (Asim Munir of Pakistan) was very impressive. He was in my office last week. Prime Minister Modi is a great friend of mine, he is a great gentleman, a great man and I got them to reason… They said ‘we want a trade deal. So we stopped a nuclear war’.”
Trump was responding to a question on why he couldn’t end the Russia-Ukraine war even months after he took charge of The White House.
During his election campaign, the Republican President had ‘sarcastically’ claimed he would end the Russia-Ukraine within 24 hours of his assumption of power.
Days ago, India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misry said Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a telephonic conversation with Trump and cleared the South Asian country will not allow any third-party mediation to resolve the issue of Pakistan’s illegal occupation of parts of Jammu and Kashmir.
Speaking on the conversation between the two leaders, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said: “PM Modi stressed that India never accepted mediation nor does it accept it now, nor will it ever do that. On this issue, there is full political unanimity.”
Trump had often mentioned the role he played in mediating between India and Pakistan to reach a ceasefire last month. India has continuously rejected the claim.
In a retaliation against the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, the Indian Armed Forces launched Operation Sindoor hitting nine terrorist bases in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
The military conflict escalated after Pakistan targeted civilians across the borders without any provocation to be aptly countered by the Indian military.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar earlier said it was Pakistan that had reached out to India for a deal to cease the military conflicts, rubbishing Trump’s claims.
“It was the Pakistani army which sent a message that they were ready to stop firing, and we responded accordingly,” Jaishankar had said.
