US President Donald Trump on Thursday repeated his claim that Washington helped settle the tensions between India and Pakistan, even as external affairs minister S. Jaishankar asserted that Delhi’s relations with Islamabad would be “strictly bilateral”.
This is the sixth day in a row Trump has made the same claim. Addressing US military personnel at the Al Udeid air base in Qatar, he said: “And by the way, I don’t want to say I did, but I sure as hell helped settle the problem between Pakistan and India last week, which was getting more and more hostile. We got it settled, I hope. I hope I don’t walk out of here and two days later find out it’s not settled….”
Speaking to the media earlier in the day, Jaishankar said: “Where Pakistan is concerned, our relations, our dealings with them will be bilateral and strictly bilateral. That is a national consensus for many years, and there is absolutely no change in that consensus….”
He said the UN Security Council had underlined the need to hold the perpetrators of the Pahalgam attack accountable, and on May 7 morning, “we held them accountable through the Operation Sindoor”.
He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made it “very clear” that any talks with Pakistan would only be on terror.