'Stopped India and Pakistan From Fighting': Trump Once Again Reiterates Claim of Mediating Ceasefire
New Delhi: As New Delhi continued to maintain strategic silence or evade questions on US president Donald Trump’s claim of mediating the recent ceasefire between India and Pakistan, Trump on Friday (May 30) evening reiterated that the USA was the chief negotiating force behind stopping a probable war between the two South Asian nations.
“We stopped India and Pakistan from fighting. I believe that could have turned out into a nuclear disaster, and I want to thank the leaders of India and Pakistan, and I want to thank my people,” Trump said.
“Also, we talk (about) trade, and we say we can't trade with people that are shooting at each other and potentially using nuclear weapons. They're great leaders in those countries, and they understood and they agreed, and that all stopped, and we're 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 Republican president said.
Trump’s claim may come as an embarrassment for the Narendra Modi government at a time when it has sent out seven multi-party delegations consisting of Indian parliamentarians to signal its so-called “new doctrine” of zero-tolerance towards terrorism.
As questions continue to be asked of what really went on in the Indo-Pak dialogue that eventually led to a ceasefire, New Delhi, posturing aggressively, has maintained that it was Pakistan’s Director-General of Military Operations (DGMO) who called his Indian counterpart Rajeev Ghai to request for a ceasefire after the Indian air force struck important military stations inside Pakistan.
Right from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and external affairs minister S. Jaishankar to foreign ministry officials have asserted such a version, but haven’t yet given a response to Trump’s claim of negotiating the ceasefire between the two nations. The Indian officials haven’t yet responded to why the US president announced the ceasefire even before any official of India or Pakistan.
Trump's consistent claim to be the primary player who contained possible nuclear proliferation
Ever since the ceasefire came into place, Trump has repeatedly given an impression that the two nations buckled under the temptation of lucrative trade deals offered by the US and heeded to its condition to stop the escalating military conflict immediately.
He has also claimed that he was the primary player to contain what could have been a nuclear proliferation in the region, contradicting the prime minister Modi’s new doctrine that India will not be deterred by “nuclear blackmail”.
Causing further embarrassment to the Modi administration was the Trump administration’s recent written filing at a New York federal court certifying that the US president used “trade access” as an incentive to “avert a full-scale war” between India and Pakistan. The statement came from US Commerce Secretary Howard W. Lutnick as part of legal submissions from four cabinet officials who are opposing a lawsuit challenging Trump’s tariffs.
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