NEW DELHI: After again claiming he brokered peace between India and Pakistan during the four-day standoff following Operation Sindoor, a claim repeatedly denied by the Indian government, US President Donald Trump has now said that “five jets were shot down” during conflict in May.
He, however, did not clarify whether the losses were suffered by one side or both.
Speaking at a White House dinner for Republican senators on Friday, Trump said: “We stopped a lot of wars. And these were serious, India and Pakistan that was going on. Planes were being shot out of there. I think five jets were shot down, actually. These are two serious nuclear countries, and they were hitting each other.” Trump again claimed that the US defused the situation using trade leverage.
“But India and Pakistan were going at it, and they were back and forth, and it was getting bigger and bigger, and we got it solved through trade.”
New Delhi has consistently dismissed Trump’s repeated assertions, maintaining that the ceasefire on May 10 was achieved through direct communication between Indian and Pakistani military officials, without any foreign involvement.
The brief conflict followed Operation Sindoor, launched by India on May 7 in response to a deadly terror attack in J&K’s Pahalgam.
Since then, Trump has repeatedly said that his administration played a key role in ending the standoff and preventing further escalation.
Hours later, he described the BRICS as a little group that wants to take over the “dominance of the dollar”. “And I said anybody that’s in the BRICS consortium of nations, we’re going to tariff you 10%,” Trump told reporters at the White House.