'Don't Know What US Said To Pakistan': Shashi Tharoor On Trump's Mediation Claims
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Shashi Tharoor backed the government's stance on ending military conflict with Pakistan and dismissed Donald Trump's repeated mediation claims.
Reiterating India's stance on ceasefire as against Donald Trump's mediation claims, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday said that while India did not need persuasion by anybody to stop fighting, the Pakistanis may have needed it from the Americans.
Tharoor, who led an Indian delegation to the US as part of the government's outreach initiative to expose Pakistan's links with terror on the global stage, said that India was very clear since the start of Operation Sindoor on May 7 that it was not willing to escalate if Pakistan did not.
The Congress leader's remarks came while reacting to Donald Trump's remarks on the ceasefire between Iran and Israel, who recently fought a 12-day war. Trump claimed credit for the ceasefire between the two warring nations, just as he repeatedly has credited himself and his government for the end of fighting between India and Pakistan last month. He has claimed on a number of occasions that he ended a 'possible nuclear war" between India and Pakistan using trade as a medium – something which has outrightly been denied by the Indian government.
#WATCH | Ahmedabad, Gujarat: On US President Donald Trump's remarks on the ceasefire between Iran and Israel, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor says 'I think we'll have to let the countries involved in that particular conflict explain what his role was with them. As far as… pic.twitter.com/NBVAes1uVf — ANI (@ANI) June 28, 2025
'I think we'll have to let the countries involved in that particular conflict explain what his (Trump's) role was with them (Israel and Iran). As far as India-Pakistan is concerned, it was clear from the start that India did not need persuading to stop," Tharoor told reporters in Ahmedabad.
'We signalled from the very first day that we were not interested in a protracted conflict or in starting a war. What we were interested in was retribution against terrorists, and we only hit terrorist camps, terrorist facilities, terrorist bases, and from our point of view, that was it. We said if Pakistan chooses not to retaliate, it's over, we are done. They did retaliate indiscriminately, and we had to hit them back. Our message every day was you hit, we hit back, if you stop, we stop," he added.
He dismissed Trump's mediation claims and said that India did not need anybody persuading it, but 'perhaps Pakistan needed" persuasion.
'No one needed to persuade India to stop. That's what the Prime Minister has also said. On the other hand, perhaps Pakistan needed persuasion. We don't know what the Americans may have said to the Pakistanis. So if the Pakistanis feel that they stopped because the Americans wanted them, too good for them," Tharoor said.
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June 28, 2025, 23:00 IST
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