Addressing the bill signing ceremony at the White House on Thursday, US President Donald Trump reaffirmed his conviction that he could resolve the age-old Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan.
Admitting his faith in himself, Trump said, "I can solve anything", and reaffirmed his commitment to sit the two competing nations down.
Speaking about the long-standing conflict over Kashmir, Trump stated, "We are going to get those two (India and Pakistan) coming together." He stated that he spoke to both nations regarding the issue, claiming, "I told them, India and Pakistan, they've had a longstanding rivalry for Kashmir and I said 'I can resolve anything.'
Recalling a discussion he said he had, Trump supplemented that he asked how long the war had been going on, and was informed, "2,000 years." Laughing, he said, "Oh, that's a problem."
Trump once more took credit for having stopped a potential war between the two South Asian neighbors, giving credit to diplomacy and economic pressure. "I stopped a war between Pakistan and India, and I stopped it with trade. I don't think I've ever seen a story written about it, but it was pretty, pretty cool. They were getting ready," he claimed.
Depicting the situation as very perilous, Trump explained that Pakistan was poised to strike back and a nuclear war appeared imminent. "And I stopped it. I called each, I respect each leader a lot. I know them, and I talked to them, and I discussed trade," he explained.
He asserted that he explained to both leaders in clear terms that military action would put their economic relationship with America at risk. I informed the leaders of Pakistan and India that you're not doing business with the US if you're going to war, if you're going to begin tossing nuclear bombs back and forth. And I said it to both of them, and they both were unbelievable. In fact, they got it exactly. They stopped. I ended that war with telephone calls and trade.
Trump continued to refer to current and future trade negotiations with both nations: "And India is here tonight, negotiating a trade agreement, and Pakistan will be coming, I believe, next week. And I'm very proud of that. Nobody died… They each have very severe, very, very significant numbers of nuclear weapons and I think we should get credit for it, you know the entire Republican party should, because that's their attitude."
The crisis between India and Pakistan intensified drastically after an attack by terrorists at Pahalgam on April 22. India retaliated with surgical strikes on terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in the early hours of May 7.
As a response, Pakistan attacked Indian military bases on May 8, 9, and 10. India heavily retaliated against these attacks, and the operations only ceased after high-ranking military authorities from both countries—the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs)—talked on May 10 and committed to stopping further escalation.
Though President Trump has made it a point to assert that US intervention averted war between the two nations, India insists the de-escalation was a result of direct DGMO-to-DGMO military-to-military contact between the two nations and not because of external facilitation.
India has also remained adamant on its stance that the Kashmir conflict had to be resolved bilaterally and would not be open to any proposition of third-party intervention.
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