US President Donald Trump on Friday reiterated his claim that India and Pakistan agreed to end their conflict after Washington threatened to impose tariffs if the two countries did not stop fighting, referring to Operation Sindoor last year.
Speaking to reporters at Camp David in Washington, Trump said India and Pakistan were "very angry, and screamed and yelled" when the US threatened tariffs if they did not end their war. He also claimed that 11 planes were shot down during the conflict, an assertion disputed by New Delhi.
Trump repeated his claim that he had stopped eight wars during his presidency and asserted that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to make a deal to end the war with Ukraine.
"We ended the India-Pakistan (war). 11 planes were shot down. That was raging. That was good. I used tariffs. I said, 'If you're going to go to war, 250 per cent tariff.' Each of them," Trump said at a media interaction after a televised meeting with his cabinet colleagues.
"And they (India and Pakistan) screamed and yelled and were very angry. They were both angry about it. A day later they called and they said, 'We will not go to war'," Trump said.
The US President said Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said he saved 50 million lives by stopping the war between the two nuclear powers.
India has maintained that the ceasefire understanding during Operation Sindoor came after Pakistan’s Director General of Military Operations contacted his Indian counterpart. New Delhi has also consistently denied any third-party intervention.
India had carried out Operation Sindoor targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) in response to the Pahalgam terror attack.
India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7 last year to destroy the terror bases in PoK used to plan the terrorist attack in Pahalgam on April 22. The operation was paused on May 10 following a request from Pakistan.
(With inputs from PTI)
