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'I'll tell you why not': Shashi Tharoor snubs Trump's mediation claim over ceasefire
The Congress leader's remark came amid repeated claims by US President Donald Trump that he "helped settle" the tensions between India and Pakistan.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who is leading the Indian diplomatic outreach programme in the Americas, dismissed the idea of any mediation between India and Pakistan, stating that there "can be no negotiation with unequals."
Tharoor, while responding to a question during a conversation at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that negotiations “cannot happen, especially when one side consists of terrorists and the other their victims.”
"Mediation is not a term that we are particularly willing to entertain. I'll tell you why not. The fact is that this implies, even when you say things like a broker or whatever, you're implying an equivalence which simply doesn't exist," Tharoor said, as quoted by news agency PTI.
He said there is no equivalence between terrorists and their victims.
"There is no equivalence between a country that provides a safe haven to terrorism, and a country that's a flourishing multi-party democracy that's trying to get on with its business," Tharoor added.
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The Congress leader's remark came amid repeated claims by US President Donald Trump that he "helped settle" the tensions between India and Pakistan.
Since May 10, when Trump announced on social media that India and Pakistan had agreed to a “full and immediate” ceasefire after a “long night” of talks mediated by Washington, he has repeated his claim over a dozen times that he “helped settle” the tensions between India and Pakistan.
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Trump also claimed that he told the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours that America would do a “lot of trade” with them if they stopped the conflict.
However, the Indian government has already rejected Trump's claim of mediation between India and Pakistan to stop military actions from both sides.
Operation Sindoor
About two weeks after the horrific April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir in which 26 civilians were killed, India launched Operation Sindoor targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on May 7.
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India and Pakistan reached an understanding on May 10 to end the conflict after four days of intense cross-border drone and missile strikes.
India has been maintaining that the understanding on cessation of hostilities with Pakistan was reached following direct talks between the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of the two militaries.
(with PTI inputs)
