United States President Donald Trump has said that he urged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to avoid a war with Pakistan. The President was addressing a group of Indian nationals during a Diwali event in the Oval Office in Washington DC.
While speaking to reporters, Trump said he had a detailed telephone conversation with Modi earlier in the day, during which they discussed several important issues, including trade.
“We talked about a lot of things, but mostly the world of trade,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “I told him that war with Pakistan should not happen,” he added, emphasizing that he believed “issues can be resolved through trade.”
“I just spoke to your Prime Minister today,” Trump told attendees at the Oval Office. “We had a great conversation. We talked about trade … Although we did talk a little while ago about let’s have no wars with Pakistan. And I think the fact that trade was involved, I was able to talk about that. And we have no war with Pakistan and India. That was a very, very good thing.”
Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan reached an understanding on May 10 to halt all military actions on land, in the air and at sea, in a ceasefire announced by Trump, under which both sides agreed not to escalate hostilities that had spiraled alarmingly in a brief but intense conflict threatening regional peace.
The two neighbors had exchanged fire using fighter jets, drones, missiles, and artillery in their worst fighting in decades, leaving around 70 people dead on both sides of the border.
Trump has since taken credit for ending the conflict, though New Delhi has disputed the involvement of any third party, maintaining that India continues to deal with Pakistan bilaterally.
The US president also claimed he had prevented eight wars so far through what he described as “deals and trade,” includingthe one between Pakistan and India.
Last week, Trump said at a White House dinner that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had recently met him and “emotionally” credited him in front of a group of people for stopping multiple wars, saying millions of lives could have been lost in the conflicts.