Trump repeats claim, says stopped India-Pak war with trade offers; calls Pak army chief 'impressive'

US President Donald Trump repeated his claim of ending the recent conflict between India and Pakistan despite New Delhi denying any such conversation.

Calling it the “most important” of all the recent conflicts, Trump said both countries have nuclear weapons and he ended that with a series of phone calls on trade.

“I said look if you are going to go fighting each other… it was getting very bad… I said if you are going to go fighting each other then we are not going to do trade deals,” Trump said during a press briefing after the NATO summit in The Hague in Netherlands.

Trump also called Pakistan army chief Asim Munir ‘impressive’ and he stopped a nuclear war between Islamabad and New Delhi with trade deal offers.

“In fact, I had the general (Pakistan army chief Asim Munir), who is really impressive… he was in my office last week… Prime Minister (Narendra) is a great friend of mine… and we got them to reason and I said we are not doing any trade deal if you are going to fight… and you know what they said no I want to do the trade deal and we stopped a nuclear war,” he said.

Trump was replying to a reporter’s question who asked when will he be able to stop the war between Ukraine and Russia. Trump said the war is more complicated than most people think and Russian President Vladimir Putin has been ‘difficult’. However, Trump claimed, he has been able to stop conflict in other regions, including between Iran and Israel, Rwanda and Congo and others.

New Delhi has made its displeasure known to Washington about Trump’s constant repetition of claims that India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire to not miss out on trade deal with the US.

During the G7 Summit held earlier this month, PM Modi held a 35-minute phone call with Trump, in which he clarified that trade deal offer was not discussed during the ceasefire talks.

“PM Modi clearly told President Trump that during this entire incident, at no time, at any level, were there any talks on issues like India-US trade deal or mediation between India and Pakistan through America,” foreign secretary Vikram Misri said in a video statement last week. “PM Modi stressed that India has never accepted mediation, does not accept it, and will never accept it.”

With agency inputs