U.S. President Donald Trump Tuesday said he called both Pakistan and India to stop the war between the two nuclear-armed countries and again praised the Pakistani leadership for acknowledging that by doing so he saved millions of lives. Stop conflict with India
“India and Pakistan were going at it. I called them both… They had just shot down seven planes… I said, if you do this, there’s not going to be any trade, and I stopped the war. It was raging for four days,” he said,
Speaking to American military commanders at the Pentagon, Trump said he leveraged U.S. trade to end the war that the two countries fought between May 7 and 10, engaging in one of the largest aerial combats in modern warfare.
Pakistan declared that it shot down six Indian fighter jets including high-tech French Rafale jets. Later, India acknowledged the losses, though without revealing the exact number of jets lost.
“And in this case, I use trade. I’m not going to trade with you. You start two nuclear nations. Big nuclear. No, no, no. You cannot do that. You go into this freaking war and I stopped it.”
On May 10, Trump announced in a social media post that India and Pakistan had agreed to a ceasefire after U.S. diplomatic engagement.
In a sign of rapidly warming U.S.-Pakistan relations, Trump spoke of his Oval Office meeting with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir.
Pakistan emphasizes close US ties, lauds Trump’s role in India conflict ceasefire
“The prime minister of Pakistan was here along with the field marshal (Asim Munir) who’s a very important guy in Pakistan. And he was here three days ago,” the U.S. president noted, referring to last Friday’s meeting.
The US president said he was honored by Pakistani military leader’s words.
“And I didn’t even realize it as beautifully as he (Asim Munir) said it, but he said that to a group of people that were with us…He (Asim Munir) said, ‘This man (Donald Trump) saved millions of lives because he stopped the war from going on,'” Trump said.
“That war was going to get very bad. I was very honored. I love the way he (Asim Munir) said it. Susie Wiles (White House Chief of Staff) was there. She said that was the most beautiful thing. But we saved a lot of them,” Trump added.
Pakistan’s prime minister thanked President Trump in his address to the UN General Assembly last week.
Islamabad has also nominated President Trump for next year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
However, New Delhi has rejected President Trump’s account of mediating ceasefire between the two nations.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has claimed that it was the Indian and Pakistan military leaders who agreed to hold the guns.
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Iftikhar Ali is a veteran Pakistani journalist, former president of UN Correspondents Association, and a recipient of the Pride of Performance civil award
