Trump repeats claim of averting India-Pak nuclear war, says 35 million lives were at risk
Claims Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif told him that nearly 35 million people could have died if the situation had escalated into a nuclear conflict
PTC Web Desk: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday once again asserted that he had prevented multiple global conflicts, including what he described as a potential “nuclear war” between India and Pakistan. Repeating a claim he has made earlier, Trump said he had stepped in at a critical moment to avert a large-scale disaster in South Asia.
Speaking during his first State of the Union address of his second term, Donald Trump said he had ended eight wars in his first 10 months back in the Oval Office. Referring to tensions between India and Pakistan, he claimed that Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had told him that nearly 35 million people could have died if the situation had escalated into a nuclear conflict.
“In my first 10 months, I ended eight wars,” Trump said, adding that India and Pakistan were on the brink of a nuclear confrontation and that millions of lives were at risk without his involvement.
Apart from India and Pakistan, Trump listed several other conflicts that he said were resolved due to his efforts. These included tensions between Israel and Hamas, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, Serbia and Kosovo, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Armenia and Azerbaijan and Cambodia and Thailand.
India, however, has consistently rejected Trump’s assertion that Washington played a mediating role in ending the four-day military confrontation last year. Responding to earlier remarks by Trump, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had remarked that the US “was in the United States” during the crisis, indicating there was no third-party intervention.
New Delhi has maintained that the de-escalation came after Pakistan’s Director General of Military Operations contacted his Indian counterpart through the established military hotline, seeking a halt to hostilities. Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri had described it as a “ceasefire understanding” reached directly between the two sides.
The military tensions followed the April 22 terrorist attack in Pahalgam, which left 26 tourists dead. In response, India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting terror infrastructure linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Interestingly, Trump’s latest remarks have also drawn attention in Pakistan. It was Islamabad that had earlier nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize, crediting his “diplomatic intervention” for preventing further escalation. His fresh claim, however, has stirred debate over the actual sequence of events that led to the ceasefire.