Calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi “a great friend” and a “gentleman”, US President Donald Trump has once again reiterated his claims of stopping the India-Pakistan conflict this year.
“Prime Minister Modi is a great friend of mine. He’s a great gentleman. He’s a great man. And I got them to reason. I said, we’re not doing a trade deal if you’re going to fight. And if you’re going to fight each other, we’re not doing a trade deal. And you know what? They said, no, I want to do the trade deal. We stopped the nuclear war,” Trump said while addressing the media at a Nato Summit in The Hague in the Netherlands on Wednesday.
Trump spoke about several ongoing military conflicts, such as the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine and between Israel and Iran. However, he said the most important one was the conflict between India and Pakistan.
Trump calls Asim Munir ‘impressive’, doubles down on trade deal threat to stop India-Pak war
Trump claimed that he was able to stop the war by making a few phone calls. He said that he had warned both countries that if they went to war, the US would not move forward with any trade deals with them. He even showed his fondness for Pak General Asim Munir.
“May be the most important of them all (wars) was India and Pakistan. I ended that with a series of phone calls and said that if you fight each other, we are not doing any trade deal. The General (Asim Munir of Pakistan) was very impressive,” Trump said.
India and Pakistan were in the conflict zone after India carried out precision strikes on terrorist camps in Pakistan on May 7. These strikes were in retaliation to the terror attack in Pahalgam on April 22 that killed 26 civilians.
Both countries agreed to halt firing on May 10. Trump had then announced a “ceasefire” and said that he helped bring the peace deal. However, India denied this, saying that Pakistan’s military had reached out first and asked India to stop the fighting.
Trump’s recent statement comes just days after PM Modi had said that he had clearly told the US President that America had no role in the ceasefire.