US President Donald Trump has once again claimed credit for resolving the India-Pakistan conflict, saying that “no one in history is more deserving than him” of the Nobel Peace Prize, while criticising former president Barack Obama for receiving the honour despite having “didn’t do anything”.
Speaking at the White House on Friday during a meeting with oil and gas executives to discuss Venezuela’s oil reserves, Trump also repeated his assertion that eight jets were shot down during the conflict in May last year, without specifying which country they belonged to.
“Look whether people like Trump or don't like Trump, I settled eight wars, big ones. Some going on for 36 years, 32 years, 31 years, 28 years, 25 years, some just getting ready to start like India and Pakistan, where already eight jets were shot out of the air,” Trump said.
The US president added that Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who visited the White House last year, had credited him with saving millions of lives by halting the conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
This marked the second time in two days that Trump claimed to have stopped the India-Pakistan conflict, a claim he has made repeatedly since May 10 last year, when he announced on social media that the two sides had agreed to a “full and immediate” ceasefire following a “long night” of talks mediated by Washington.
India had launched Operation Sindoor on May 7 last year, targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in response to the April 22 Pahalgam attack that killed 26 civilians. Four days later, on May 10, India and Pakistan reached an understanding to end hostilities after intense cross-border drone and missile strikes, though India has consistently denied any third-party mediation.
Trump further argued that he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize more than anyone in history, claiming he had stopped eight wars within eight months of beginning his second term.
He again criticised Obama for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize shortly after taking office in 2009, despite having “didn’t do anything”.
“I can't think of anybody in history that should get the Nobel Prize more than me and I don't want to be bragging, but nobody else settled wars. Obama got the Nobel Prize. He had no idea why. He still has no idea. He walks around, he says, ‘I got the Nobel Prize’. Why did he get a Nobel Prize? He got it almost immediately upon attaining office, and he didn't do anything, and he was a bad president,” Trump said.
Trump said Nobel Peace Prizes should be awarded for “every war you stopped. These were major wars. These were wars that nobody thought could be stopped”.
He also claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin had told him he had tried unsuccessfully for a decade to end two of the conflicts Trump said he resolved.
"He couldn't believe it. So in theory, you should get the Nobel Prize for every war you stopped. Every one of them was major. But I don't care about that. What I care about is saving lives. I've saved tens of millions of lives,” he said.
Asked about Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who last year dedicated her Nobel Peace Prize to him and said she wanted to give him the honour, Trump said she would be visiting Washington next week.
Trump said Machado would come to “pay her regards to our country, really to me, but you know I'm a representative of the country, nothing else, and she's coming in sometime next week”.
Calling her visit “it's very nice”, Trump said he understood the reason was that “Norway is very embarrassed by what took place. I mean, they're getting decimated”, referring to Machado’s offer to hand over her prize after the Oslo-based Nobel committee did not honour him.
“But I'm honoured that she's coming here. I look forward to meeting her,” he said.
A day earlier, Trump reiterated the same claim in an interview with Fox News, saying he had stopped the war between India and Pakistan, the two nuclear powers “ready to go at it big”.
