New Delhi: The Congress on Tuesday said US President Donald Trump has for at least the 21st time repeated his claims on bringing about a “ceasefire” between India and Pakistan, and asked when will Prime Minister Narendra Modi break his “silence” on this issue.
In his remarks on Monday, Trump repeated the claim that he stopped the war between India and Pakistan by telling the two neighbours that Washington would not do trade with them if they continued the fighting.
Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said, “For at least the 21st time in the last 59 days, President Trump has said that he “stopped the four-day India-Pakistan war in May; the war was about to escalate into a nuclear conflict.”
Trump has stated that India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire because the carrot-and-stick of trade with the US was used by him, Ramesh said.
“In other words, his message was: stop the war at once or face the real prospects of losing American markets (and presumably investment),” he said.
President Trump has trumpeted all this just as he was also announcing that a US trade deal with India and Pakistan was about to be declared very soon, Ramesh said.
“When will Narendra Modi – once described by his senior colleague Ghanshyam Tiwari as the BJP’s ‘trump card’ – break his silence on this issue?” the Congress leader said.
Trump on Monday said the US is close to making a trade deal with India.
“Now, we’ve made a deal with the United Kingdom, we’ve made a deal with China. We’re close to making a deal with India. Others we met with and we don’t think we’re going to be able to make a deal, so we just send them a letter. If you want to play ball, this is what you have to pay,” Trump said on Monday.
Repeating his claim about bringing about a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, Trump said, “We did a job with India and Pakistan, Serbia, Kosovo, Rwanda and the Congo, and this was all over the last three weeks or so and others that were ready to fight.”
“And we stopped a lot of fights. I think the very big one, frankly, a very, very big one, was India and Pakistan. And we stopped that over trade,” he said.
“We said we’re not going to be dealing with you at all if you’re going to fight. And they were maybe at a nuclear stage. They’re both nuclear powers. And I think stopping that was very important,” Trump added.
Since May 10, Trump has repeated his claim several times that he helped settle the tensions between India and Pakistan and that he told the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours that America will do a lot of trade with them if they stop the conflict.
India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting terrorist infrastructure in territories controlled by Pakistan in response to the Pahalgam terror attack.
The strikes triggered four days of intense clashes that ended with an understanding on stopping the military actions on May 10.
New Delhi has been maintaining that India’s fierce counter-attack that day forced Pakistan to plead for ending the hostilities.
