'58 times': Congress takes swipe at govt after Trump repeats 'India-Pak' claim

New Delhi | With US President Donald Trump again repeating his claim that India and Pakistan "made peace" after he threatened them with snapping trade deals, the Congress on Thursday took a swipe at the Modi government and said "this makes it 58 times" this has been stated.

Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh attacked the government with the poser –what unites Washington DC, Riyadh, Doha, London, The Hague, Sharm-al-Sheikh, Tokyo, the US President's Air Force One plane, and now Miami.

'These are all places where President Trump has declared that he used trade and tariffs to stop Operation Sindoor. This makes it 58 times since the evening of May 10th – when the very first announcement of the end to Operation Sindoor was made from Washington DC," Ramesh said on X.

He also shared the video clip of Trump's remarks in Miami.

Ramesh's remarks came after Trump said that India and Pakistan "made peace" in May after he threatened the two nuclear-armed neighbours to snap trade deals with them if they continued their military conflict, a claim he has repeated several times since then.

"In eight months I ended eight wars, including Kosovo and Serbia, and Congo and Rwanda, that were going on for a long time... Pakistan and India," Trump said in his address at the America Business Forum in Miami on Wednesday.

"You know, I was in the midst of a trade deal with both of them (India and Pakistan), and then I read on the front page of a certain newspaper... I heard they were going to war. Seven planes were shot down, and the eighth was really badly wounded... Eight planes were shot down essentially," Trump said.

He added, “I said, this is war, and they are going at it. And they are two nuclear nations. I said, ‘I'm not going to make any trade deals with you guys unless you agree to peace.' "The two nations said 'No way. This has nothing to do...' I said, It has everything to do (with it). You are nuclear powers.

I'm not trading with you. We're not making any deals with you if you're at war with each other'." "A day later, I get a call saying, 'We made peace'. They stopped. I said, 'Thank you. Let's do trade'. Isn't that great? Tariffs did that. Without tariffs, that would have never happened," Trump said amid applause.

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 that he helped settle the tensions between the two neighbouring countries.

India has consistently denied any third-party intervention.

India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation for the April 22 Pahalgam attack that killed 26 civilians.

India and Pakistan reached an understanding on May 10 to end the conflict after four days of intense cross-border drone and missile strikes.