In a diplomatic setback for India, the aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the India-Pakistan conflict was brought to an end by the involvement of US President Donald Trump.
While referring to the four-day-long intense military conflict between the two South Asian neighbours, Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov called it “the armed conflict between India and Pakistan, which has been halted with the personal involvement of President Trump.”
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This goes against New Delhi’s assertion that the ‘pause in fighting’ between India and Pakistan was due to the respective militaries talking to each other at the level of directors general of military operations (DGMO) that was initiated by Pakistan after being rattled by strikes by the Indian Army and the air force “after which discussions took place and understanding reached”.
On Wednesday, Ushakov issued a statement on the outcome of the 70-minute long telephonic conversation between Putin and Trump—the fourth one—in recent times and began with a discussion on the situation around Ukraine and the outcomes of the second round of direct Russian-Ukrainian talks in Istanbul.
On the day of the ‘pause in fighting’ on May 10, President Trump had taken to social media claiming credit for the breakthrough. His post read: “After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE.”
A second post read: “I am proud that the USA was able to help you arrive at this historic and heroic decision.”
Another point of controversy was Trump’s offer to mediate on the ‘Kashmir issue’ which goes against the grain of India’s long-held position of the ‘Kashmir issue’ being a bilateral one and that there was no scope for any third mediation as postulated by the Simla Agreement that was signed on July 2, 1972, between then Indian PM Indira Gandhi and Pakistan’s President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
