'Wanted to Thank Him for Not Going into War': Trump After Meeting Pakistan Army Chief

New Delhi: US president Donald Trump hosted Pakistan's army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, for lunch on June 18 at the White House, marking the first time a US president has hosted a Pakistani army chief without senior civilian officials in attendance.

Trump said that he was "honoured" to meet Munir when he was asked about the meeting by reporters later. He then added that the reason he invited him was to "thank him for not going into the war" – presumably with India. After the Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 civilians lost their lives on April 22, India had launched 'Operation Sindoor', which involved precision strikes of terror sites in Pakistan, following which there was a four-day period of cross-border shelling and strikes until a ceasefire was announced by Trump.

"The reason I had him here was that I wanted to thank him for not going into the war [with India]. And I want to thank PM Modi as well, who just left a few days ago. We’re working on a trade deal with India and Pakistan. These two very smart people decided not to keep going with a war that could have been a nuclear war. Pakistan and India are two big nuclear powers," Trump said.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said Trump was hosting Munir after he called for the president to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for preventing a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, Reuters reported.

Trump wove the remark on the war into a broader question on Israel's strikes on Iran, to which he said:

“They [Pakistan] know Iran very well, better than most, and they’re not happy about anything. It’s not that they’re bad with Israel. They know them both, actually, but they know Iran better," he said. “He [Munir] agreed with me," he added before speaking on India.

Reuters has reported that Munir was widely expected to press Trump not to enter Israel's war with Iran. A section of Pakistan's embassy in Washington represents Iran's interests in the United States, as Tehran does not have diplomatic relations with the country.

Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reported that insiders suggested that the meeting was not arranged through routine diplomatic channels, but rather was the outcome of “unorthodox efforts” by a group of advisers, businessmen, and other influential figures.

India is unlikely to be happy with the lunch. Especially seeing that just hours after prime minister Narendra Modi denied claims of American mediation in halting hostilities between India and Pakistan, Trump insisted again that he had “stopped a war” between the South Asian countries.

Responding to a reporter’s question before his lunch, Trump had said, “Well, I stopped a war … I love Pakistan. I think Modi is a fantastic man. I spoke to him last night. We’re going to make a trade deal with Modi of India, but I stopped the war between Pakistan and India.”

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