Washington, DC: In a new twist to his recurring claim of having stopped the armed conflict between India and Pakistan, US president Donald Trump has now said that Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif would have been killed had it not been for him.
“In my first 10 months, I ended eight wars… Pakistan and India would have had a nuclear war. 35 million people said the prime minister of Pakistan would have died if it were not for my involvement,” Trump said during State of the Union address, as reported by ANI.
The Republican leader has recently claimed that 11 “very expensive” jets were shot down during the war between India and Pakistan.
India has firmly denied any US role in bringing about a cessation of operations against Pakistan during Operation Sindoor. It was
precision missile strikes on multiple Pakistan Air Force bases that brought the country to its knees, India maintained. On May 10, the DGMO of Pakistan approached his Indian counterpart, seeking a ceasefire.
Trump has, however, gone on ever since, claiming that it was he who stopped the war.
Speaking at the Board of Peace last week, the US president said that he threatened to impose 200 per cent tariff on both countries, adding that the two warring nations stopped military exchanges as there’s “nothing like money”, as reported by the Deccan Herald.
Trump further claimed that he had called India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he would not trade with New Delhi.
India has never wanted a full-blown military conflict with Pakistan when it struck terror facilities in that country on May 7 as part of Operation Sindoor, in response to the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam that claimed the lives of 26 tourists on April 22.
Immediately after these strikes, India had informed Pakistan that no military or civilian infrastructure had been hit. Pakistan, however, escalated the situation and launched strikes against military and civilian targets in India.