US President Donald Trump on Wednesday credited “two very smart people” — Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan army chief Asim Munir — with halting the India-Pakistan fighting, having earlier claimed personal credit 14 times for stopping the conflict.
Every time Trump had spoken publicly on India and Pakistan between May 10 — the day of what Washington describes as a “US-brokered ceasefire” — and Wednesday morning, he had claimed he had got the two countries to stop firing at each other.
His latest comment, which broke with the pattern, came as he spoke to the media at the Oval Office after hosting Munir to a closed-door lunch in the Cabinet Room.
“Reason I had him here, I want to thank him for not going into the war, ending the war. And I want to thank, as you know, Prime Minister Modi just left a little while ago, and we’re working a trade deal with India. We’re working a trade deal with Pakistan,” Trump said.
“And, they were both here, but I was with Modi a few weeks ago. He was here actually, but now we speak to him. And I’m so happy there was a deal, that two smart people…. two very smart people decided not to keep going with that war.”
Trump added: “That could have been a nuclear war. Those are two nuclear powers, big ones, big, big nuclear powers, and they decided that.”
The US President was answering a question on whether he had discussed Iran
with Munir.
According to the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, secretary of state Marco Rubio and the special representative for Middle Eastern affairs, Steve Witkoff, were present from the American side in a clear indication that the Israel-Iran conflict was on the agenda.
Munir was accompanied by national security adviser Mohammad Asim Malik, who is also the director-general of Pakistan’s spy agency, the ISI.
Modi had spoken to Trump earlier in the day after the US President cancelled their scheduled meeting in Alberta on the sidelines of the G7 Summit because he had to return to Washington early. The two last met in the US in February.
Trump’s meeting with Munir was significant because Pakistan is not under martial law right now. Earlier Pakistan army chiefs who have had bilateral engagements with US Presidents did so in their capacity as head of state when the country was under martial law.
The Congress continued to target the government for what it saw as the failure of Indian diplomacy under Modi, and cited Trump’s lunch with Munir as another instance of that failure.
“Field Marshall Asim Munir is NOT the Head of State or Head of Government of Pakistan. He is the Chief of Army Staff. Yet he gets invited by President Trump for lunch and receives much praise,” Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh posted on X.
“This is the same man whose atrocious and inflammatory remarks formed the immediate backdrop to the brutal Pahalgam terror attacks orchestrated by the establishment over which he presides. It is a huge blow to Indian diplomacy (and huglomacy too).”
Ramesh’s colleague Pawan Khera asked why the government had not challenged the hyphenation of India and Pakistan by Trump, adding that now the US President had hyphenated Modi and Munir.
“Again, the government remains mute. But the Opposition will never accept this insult to the office of India’s Prime Minister,” Khera said.