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US President Donald Trump has stated that Pakistani officials will visit the US next week for trade talks and that Washington and New Delhi are close to reaching a deal. The US president,
however, warned that he would not sign any trade deal with either Pakistan or India if the two countries were going to be at war with each other. “Pakistan representatives are coming in next
week. We’re very close to making a deal with India. And I wouldn’t have any interest in making a deal with either if they were going to be at war with each other…,” the US president told
reporters during a briefing at Joint Base Andrews on Friday. Advertisement Earlier, speaking at an event in the Oval Office on Friday, the US president once again claimed credit for the
Indo-Pak ceasefire, saying the exchange of missiles and drone attacks between the warring neighbours earlier this month could have turned into a nuclear disaster. Advertisement His remarks
came amid heightened tensions between India and Pakistan following the barbaric terrorist attack on tourists in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam last month. India squarely blamed Pakistan for
the attack and launched a military operation (Operation Sindoor) against terror sites in Pakistan and PoK. The two countries came on the brink of an all-out war, but Trump made a sudden
announcement of the ceasefire, which was confirmed by the two sides shortly afterwards. Trump had claimed that he leveraged trade to end the hostilities and probably stopped a nuclear war,
given that both India and Pakistan are nuclear-armed powers. While Pakistan acknowledged the US role and thanked Trump for the ceasefire, India stated that the cessation of firing and
military action was directly negotiated between the two countries. Minister of External Affairs (MEA) Dr S Jaishankar, in an interview with Dutch public broadcasters NOS, stated, “We made
one thing very clear to everybody who spoke to us, not just the United States, but to everybody. saying, ‘Look, if the Pakistanis want to stop firing, they need to tell us. We need to hear
it from them. Their general has to call up our general and say this and that is what happened.” Advertisement