US President Donald Trump on Friday reiterated his controversial claim that he stopped India and Pakistan from engaging in a full-blown conflict, possibly even a nuclear confrontation.
“We talked trade and we said, ‘we can’t trade with people that are shooting at each other and potentially using nuclear weapons’,” Donald Trump said while addressing a press conference in the Oval Office. Seated beside him was Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is stepping down from his role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE in the Trump administration.
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“We stopped India and Pakistan from fighting. I believe that could have turned into a nuclear disaster,” Trump said, crediting his diplomacy and the cooperation of leaders from both nations for defusing tensions in the region.
Donald Trump added that he wants to thank the “leaders of India, the leaders of Pakistan, and I want to thank my people also”.
Trump said that leaders in India and Pakistan are “great leaders” and “they understood, and they agreed, and that all stopped”.
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“We are stopping others from fighting also, because ultimately, we can fight better than anybody. We have the greatest military in the world. We have the greatest leaders in the world,” the US President further claimed.
This was the latest in a series of claims by Trump that the US “helped settle” tensions between India and Pakistan.
On April 22, terrorists killed 26 people, mostly tourists, in a brutal attack at Baisaran meadow in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam. About two weeks later, India launched ‘Operation Sindoor’ targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
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India and Pakistan reached an understanding on May 10 to end the conflict after four days of intense cross-border drone and missile strikes.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that he “helped settle” the tensions between India and Pakistan and that he told the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours that America would do a “lot of trade” with them if they stopped the conflict.
What India said on ceasefire
The Indian government in New Delhi have maintained that the Director Generals of Military Operations (DGsMO) of India and Pakistan reached an understanding to stop all firings and military actions on land, air and sea, with immediate effect. They said no third party was involved.
External affairs minister S Jaishankar has said the India-Pakistan understanding on cessation of hostilities was arrived at following direct negotiations between the two sides.
Jaishankar also said India would again hit terrorists in Pakistan in response to any future terror strikes like the one in Pahalgam, suggesting that it was the reason why Operation Sindoor has not been concluded.
