Five jets shot down in Ind-Pakistan conflict which could have turned nuclear: Trump reiterates claim

New York/Washington: US President Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed yet again that he stopped the recent "war" between India and Pakistan and that five planes were shot down in the conflict.

He also claimed that the conflict between India and Pakistan "was probably going to end up in a nuclear war".

"We stopped wars between India and Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda," he said at a reception in the White House with the Congress members.

"They shot down five planes and it was back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I called them and said, 'Listen, no more trade. If you do this, you're not going to be good…They're both powerful nuclear nations and that would have happened, and who knows where that would have ended up. And I stopped it'," he added.

Trump claimed the US took out Iran's entire nuclear capability and also stopped the conflict between Kosovo and Serbia.

"And a couple of others that we didn't stop a war, but we stopped what probably could have ended up in a war. We do that on the House as compliments of America. Okay, do you think (former US President Joe) Biden would do that? I don't think so. Do you think he ever heard of any of those countries? I don't think so,” Trump said.

Trump, who has repeatedly said that he stopped the conflict between India and Pakistan through trade, last Friday said for the first time that “five jets were shot down” during the fighting.

“You had India, Pakistan, that was going… in fact, planes were being shot out of the air, five, five, four or five. But I think five jets were shot down actually…that was getting worse and worse, wasn't it? That was looking like it was going to go, these are two serious nuclear countries and they were hitting each other,” he had said at the White House in his remarks made during a dinner that he hosted for the Republican senators.

Meanwhile, Acting US Representative Ambassador Dorothy Shea said at an open debate in the UN Security Council on Tuesday on ‘Multilateralism and Peaceful Settlement of Disputes’ held under Pakistan’s presidency of the Council that across the globe, the United States continues to work with parties to disputes, wherever possible, to find peaceful solutions.

With Pakistan Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar presiding over the Council meeting, Shea said that in the past three months alone, “we have seen the US leadership deliver de-escalations between Israel and Iran, between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, and between India and Pakistan.” “The United States, under President Trump’s leadership, played an important role in encouraging the parties to reach these resolutions, which we applaud and support,” Shea said.

Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish, India's Permanent Representative to the UN, in his statement in the UNSC chamber spoke about the Pahalgam terror attack for which The Resistance Front, a front for Pakistan-based terror organization Lashkar-e-Tayyiba had claimed responsibility.

Harish emphasized that there should be a “serious cost” to states who “violate the spirit of good neighbourliness and international relations by fomenting cross-border terrorism.”

He said that India launched Operation Sindoor targeting terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir consequent to the gruesome terrorist attack in Pahalgam on April 22 that led to the killing of 26 innocent tourists and based on the April 25 UNSC statement.

In the UNSC statement, the Council members had underlined the need to hold perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of this reprehensible act of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice.

Harish emphasised that India’s response was focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature.

“On achieving its primary objectives, a cessation of military activities was directly concluded at the request of Pakistan,” he said.

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 several times on various occasions that he “helped settle” the tensions and that he told the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours that America will do a “lot of trade” with them if they stopped the conflict.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Trump were scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Kananaskis, Canada, in June, but the US president returned to Washington early.

Before departing Kananaskis and wrapping up his first visit to Canada in a decade, Modi had a 35-minute telephonic conversation with Trump in Washington.

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri had said in a video message from Kananaskis that Modi clearly conveyed to Trump that at “no point” during the days following Operation Sindoor was there any discussion, at any level, on an India-US trade deal or any proposal for mediation by the US between India and Pakistan.

Asserting Prime Minister Modi firmly stated that India does not and will never accept mediation, Misri had said the discussion to cease military action took place directly between India and Pakistan through the existing channels of communication between the two armed forces and it was initiated at Pakistan's request.

The US has designated The Resistance Front as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT). 

The State Department said these actions taken by it against The Resistance Front “demonstrates the Trump administration’s commitment to protecting our national security interests, countering terrorism, and enforcing President Trump’s call for justice for the Pahalgam attack.”