US President Donald Trump on Tuesday contradicted India’s contention that there was no conversation between him and Prime Minister Narendra Modi while Operation Sindoor was on.
He asserted that the two had spoken during the military action, following which India and Pakistan announced the cessation of firing within five hours.
“I’m talking to a very terrific man, Modi, of India and I say, ‘What’s going on with you and Pakistan?’” is how Trump described the conversation.
There was no immediate response from the external affairs ministry to the US President’s latest claim — his umpteenth iteration of his role in pulling India and Pakistan back from the brink of a full-scale, “nuclear” war.
Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi was quick to latch on to Trump’s latest claim and repeat it at a Voter Adhikar Yatra rally in Muzaffarpur, Bihar.
Rahul said the US President had asked the Prime Minister to end the war with Pakistan in 24 hours, and “Narendra Modi ended it in five hours”.
New Delhi says the cessation of hostilities was decided after a phone conversation between the two countries’ directors-general of military operations, and there was no third-party mediation.
Trump — who has his eyes set on the Nobel Peace Prize — made his latest claim on brokering peace between the two South Asian neighbours at a cabinet meeting in the White House.
This was hours before the 50 per cent tariff regime on India was to come into effect.
Dwelling on his role in ending wars across the globe, Trump said: “…Just like India and Pakistan were going to end up in a nuclear war if I didn’t stop ’em…. I saw they were fighting. Then I saw seven jets were shot down.
“I said that’s not good, that’s a lot of jets. You know 150-million-dollar planes were shot down. Lot of them. Seven, maybe more than that. They didn’t even report the real number.
“I’m talking to a very terrific man, Modi, of India and I say, ‘What’s going on with you and Pakistan?’ Then I’m talking to Pakistan on trade. I said, ‘What’s going on with you and India?’ And, the hatred was tremendous. Now this is being going on for hell of a long time….
“I said, ‘What’s going on?’ I said I don’t want to make a trade deal. ‘No, no, no, we want to make trade deal’. I said, ‘No, no, I don’t wanna make a trade deal with you. You’re gonna have a nuclear war. You guys are gonna end up in a nuclear war.’ That was very important to them.
“I said, ‘Call me back tomorrow but we’re not gonna do any deals with you or we’re gonna put tariffs on you that are so high – I don’t give a damn – your heads are going to spin’…. Within about five hours, it was done. Maybe it starts again, I don’t know, I don’t think so but I will stop it if it does. We can’t let these things happen.”
Trump clearly stated that he had spoken to Modi. New Delhi has contested this claim in the past. During the discussion in Parliament on Operation Sindoor last month, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar had said that no conversation had taken place between Trump and Modi after the April 22 Pahalgam attack till their June 17 phone conversation.
The conversation Trump claims to have had with Modi would have taken place on May 10 (Indian time).