US President Trump attends the 80th United Nations General Assembly, in New York City
Credit: Reuters photo
New Delhi: President Donald Trump on Tuesday not only blamed New Delhi for funding Russia’s war in Ukraine, but also took his oft-repeated claim about brokering the May 10 truce between India and Pakistan to the United Nations, notwithstanding repeated rebuttals from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government.
“China and India are the primary funders of the ongoing war,” the United States president said. He had last month imposed an additional 25% tariff – on top of 25% imposed earlier – on India’s exports to the US as a punitive action against the South Asian nation for continuing to buy oil from Russia despite the sanctions imposed on the former Soviet Union nation after it had launched its war in Ukraine in February 2022.
“In a period of just seven months, I have ended seven unendable wars,” Trump, who returned as the US president on January 20, told the UN General Assembly. He then went on to claim that he had ended the wars between Israel and Iran, India and Pakistan, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Thailand and Cambodia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Serbia and Kosovo.
The US president has been routinely repeating his claim about mediating the truce between India and Pakistan to end the four-day cross-border flare-up between the two South Asian neighbours between May 7 and 10. This is, however, the first time he made the claim at the United Nations.
"They said they were unendable. Some (of the conflicts) were going on for 31 years, one was (going on for) 36 years. I ended seven wars, and, in all cases, they were raging with countless thousands of people being killed,” Trump said, claiming that no other president or prime minister had “ever done anything close to that”.
Apart from his tariff tirade against India and his moves to make it difficult for India to continue to be involved in the operation of the sanction waiver to the Chabahar Port in Iran, as well as to restrict the use of H1B visas by the Indian Information Technology professionals to visit and work in the US, Trump’s repeated claims about brokering the truce between India and Pakistan contributed to the stress in the ties between New Delhi and Washington, DC.
Trump on Tuesday criticised the UN and said that he had to do what the international organisation should have done. He said that the UN had not even tried to help end the wars. "It (the UN) is not even coming close to living up to its potential...It's (offering) only empty words, and empty words don't solve wars,” said the US president.
India had responded to the April 22 carnage in J&K by launching “Operation Sindoor” early on May 7 and carrying out precision strikes targeting terrorist camps in Pakistan as well as in areas under illegal occupation of Pakistan. The Pakistan Army had retaliated, targeting civilians and military facilities in India. The cross-border offensive and counter-offensive had continued till May 10.
New Delhi, over the past three months, repeatedly refuted the US claim about brokering the ceasefire that ended the four-day cross-border military offensive and counter-offensive between India and Pakistan. Modi, himself, dismissed the claim during a phone call with Trump, himself, on June 17, as well as during a debate in the Lok Sabha on July 29.
Trump and his administration, however, did not relent and continued to claim credit for the truce between the two South Asian neighbours. Pakistan, however, endorsed the US president’s claim and nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.