Trump At It Again: After Ceasefire Post, US President Asks India To ‘Go Out To Dinner’ With Pakistan
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged India to “go out to dinner” with Pakistan and said “both nations are getting along well together”. India, however, this week put its neighbour on notice that the recently conducted counter-terror operations like Operation Sindoor – where India struck terror hideouts in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) in nine locations – is the new normal and Indian forces will strike again if terrorist groups in its soil rear up their heads again.
“Let us not trade nuclear missiles, let us trade goods, the good things that you make. Maybe we can even get them together a little bit, Marco, where they go out and have a nice dinner together,” Donald Trump said, lauding his Secretary Of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance, for their roles.
“We reached a historic ceasefire a few days ago—millions could have died in a conflict between India and Pakistan”.
Donald Trump claimed that he leveraged trade to broker the ceasefire, a claim that the Indian government has rejected.
“US Secretary Rubio spoke to Jaishankar on May 8, 10 and to Doval on May 10; there was no reference to trade in any discussion,” the Indian government officials have maintained.
Without naming the US President, the Ministry of External Affairs in a press briefing said that the issue of Kashmir is bilateral in nature.
“We have a longstanding national position that any issues pertaining to the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir have to be addressed by India and Pakistan bilaterally. That stated policy has not changed. As you are aware, the outstanding matter is the vacation of illegally occupied Indian territory by Pakistan,” the ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said.
Earlier on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi set the record straight and said that India will speak to Pakistan on terrorism and on the vacation of the PoK by Islamabad and that there is nothing else to talk about.
“Talks with Pakistan can only happen on terror and return of PoK, nothing else,” PM Modi had said.
