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‘8 times, 11 days, 3 nations’: Congress on Donald Trump's India-Pakistan ceasefire claims, slams PM Modi
Congress MP Jairam Ramesh also questioned Donald Trump's claim about having put India and Pakistan on the same boat.
The Congress on Thursday once again questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his "silence" over US President Donald Trump's repeated claims of having brokered the India-Pakistan ceasefire understanding.
Congress MP Jairam Ramesh, while speaking to news agency ANI, noted that within 11 days, Donald Trump has claimed credit for the ceasefire understanding eight times across three countries, the US, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. The American President has repeatedly affirmed that he leveraged his tariffs to get both countries to agree to cease all military actions against each other.
"Our Prime Minister does not want to hear about tariffs; our Prime Minister only wants to hear 'Tareef' (praise). So, the PM is silent on this. The Prime Minister has not said anything," Ramesh added.
He also claimed that external affairs minister S Jaishankar is also silent on the matter.
ALSO READ | Congress urges PM Modi to ‘break silence’ on US' repeated claims about India-Pakistan ceasefire
Ramesh further raked up Trump's statement of having put India and Pakistan in the same boat. "India's economy has increased 10 times in comparison to Pakistan's economy, but both of them have come in the same boat. How can this happen?" the Congress MP asked.
Donald Trump has been repeatedly claiming credit for helping settle the escalating tension between India and Pakistan.
India-Pakistan ceasefire
Following the April 22 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam that killed 26 people, mostly civilians, the Indian armed forces launched 'Operation Sindoor' on May 7.
Under this operation, India took out nine terror infrastructures linked to outfits such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad in Pakistan. More than a 100 terrorists were killed during Operation Sindoor.
ALSO READ | Team Trump uses India-Pak ceasefire to justify tariffs, court rejects defence
India's operation led to Pakistan's attempt to launch a retaliatory military action, with cross-border shelling and drone assaults. However, the nation's air defence system and armed forces thwarted these attempts successfully.
Following four days of intense cross-border fighting, India and Pakistan arrived at a ceasefire understanding on May 10. This is where Trump came in, as he was the first one to announce the truce deal.
Trump's claims
He claimed that after a long night of mediated talks, India and Pakistan agreed to reach a "full and immediate" ceasefire. Trump stated that he used "trade to a large extent" to broker the ceasefire.
"I said let's make a deal, let's do some trading. Let's not trade nuclear missiles. Let's trade the things you make so beautifully. And they both have very powerful leaders, strong leaders and it all stopped. Hopefully it will remain that way,” he had said.
ALSO READ | Donald Trump doubles down on India-Pakistan ceasefire claim, uses ‘very nasty N word’
Trump had also offered to mediate the Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan. In a post on Truth Social, he had said, "While not even discussed, I am going to increase trade substantially with both of these great Nations. Additionally, I will work with you both to see if, after a “thousand years,” a solution can be arrived at concerning Kashmir. God Bless the leadership of India and Pakistan on a job well done."
People familiar with the ceasefire matter, however, refuted Trump's claim and said that trade did not figure at all in any of the discussions between top US and Indian leaders on the Indo-Pak crisis.
ALSO READ | How India and Pakistan hammered out a surprise pause
The external affairs ministry also pushed back against Trump's offer to mediate on Kashmir and his claim of having used trade to prevent a "nuclear war" and said that the military action under Operation Sindoor was "entirely in the conventional domain".
However, India's refusal did not stop Trump from holding back. He repeated these claims once again, not just within the US, but also in other countries.
Official statements underlined that the ceasefire was reached as a result of bilateral discussions between the directors general of military operations (DGMOs) of both countries.
Trump raked up his claim of having brokered the India-Pakistan ceasefire once again during his meeting with South African president Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House.
The US President had said Trump, "If you take a look at what we just did with Pakistan and India. We settled that whole, and I think I settled it through trade.”
Meanwhile, a US federal court blocked Trump from imposing his sweeping tariffs, ruling that he exceeded the legal authority granted to him. The US administration had told the court that the ceasefire “was achieved only after both countries were offered trading access with the US to avert a full-scale war.”
However, the federal court ruled against the Trump administration.
