Days after US President Donald Trump again tried to take credit for playing “peacemaker” between nuclear-powered South Asian neighbours India and Pakistan, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also spoken out on the issue in a new interview.
Hot on the heels of the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, Rubio’s interview with US outlet NBC News was broadcast. Therein, he prominently focussed on the ongoing negotiations as the US president awaits the arrival of his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington, DC, so that their talks could mull over ways to put an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Rubio still had enough time to discuss the South Asian conflict as well in the wake of the April 22 Pahalgam attack and India’s subsequent Operation Sindoor in the month of May.
Marco Rubio on India-Pakistan
“The only way to have a ceasefire is for both sides to agree to stop firing on one another… One of the complications about ceasefires is that they have to be maintained, which is very difficult,” he told the outlet. “Every single day, we keep an eye on what is happening between Pakistan and India… Cambodia and Thailand.”
His comments follow over a week after Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir visited Washington DC for the second time in recent times. On August 10 (IST), he sat down with top US political and military leaders.
Trump again took credit for brokering ceasefire between India-Pak
Moreover, on the eve of his interaction with Putin in Alaska, Trump boasted about his supposed role in “solving” six wars in the last six months or so since the commencement of his second office term. During his recent admission, he also remarked, “If you look at Pakistan and India, planes were being knocked out of the air… 6 or 7 planes came down. They were ready to go maybe nuclear, we solved that.”
In addition to foregrounding the US’ role in keeping a watch over global conflicts, Rubio further told NBC News that a temporary ceasefire agreement between Ukraine and Russia was not completely “off the table” despite Trump switching tones to focus on a full-fledged peace deal after the Putin meeting.