Washington: US President Donald Trump has once again claimed to have resolved the war between India and Pakistan, saying that seven planes were shot down in the firing between the two countries without specifying to which nation they belonged.
Speaking in an interview with Fox News broadcast on Sunday, Trump claimed that the “threat of tariffs” forced India and Pakistan to stop the war. “The threat of tariffs, as an example, kept India and Pakistan, two nuclear nations, from going at it. They were going at it. Seven planes were shot down; that’s a lot. And they were going at it. And that could have been a nuclear war,” the US President said.
Trump said Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif praised him for saving millions of lives.“The Prime Minister of Pakistan actually just said, Donald Trump, President Trump, saved millions of lives by getting that,” he said. The US president said he threatened to impose 200 per cent tariffs on India and Pakistan, which forced them to stop the war.
Trump said he told both countries, “We’re going to put on 200 tariffs, which will make it impossible for you to deal, and we’re not going to do business with you. “And after 24 hours, I settled the war,” the US President said. Since May 10, when Trump announced on social media that India and Pakistan had agreed to a “full and immediate” ceasefire after a “long night” of talks mediated by Washington, he has repeated his claim dozens of times that he “helped settle” the conflict between India and Pakistan.
India has consistently maintained that the understanding on cessation of hostilities with Pakistan was reached following direct talks between the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of the two militaries. India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation for the April 22 Pahalgam attack that killed 26 civilians.
India and Pakistan reached an understanding on May 10 to end the conflict after four days of intense cross-border drone and missile strikes.
