ISLAMABAD: US President Donald Trump praised Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir during an address to senior American military leaders at Quantico, saying they had credited him with averting a devastating war with India.
Speaking to 800 top officers, Trump said the two Pakistani leaders recently thanked him in Washington for helping prevent what could have been a catastrophic conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
“This man saved millions of lives because he saved the war from going on,” Trump quoted them as saying. He recounted how tensions escalated after fighter jets were downed.
“They just shot down seven planes,” Trump said. “It was starting, there was a lot of bad blood. That war was going to get very bad... very, very bad. But we stopped it. Millions saved.”
Trump claimed he used the threat of suspending trade to pressure both capitals into backing down. “I said, ‘You do this, there’s not going to be any trade.’ And I stopped the war. It was raging for four days, but that was just the beginning.”
The crisis followed a militant attack in April in Indian-occupied Kashmir’s Pahalgam, which killed at least 26 tourists. India accused Pakistan of orchestrating the assault, a charge Islamabad strongly denied while offering an independent investigation. The incident sparked a military exchange that left more than 70 people dead on both sides before a ceasefire took effect on May 10.
Broadening his remarks beyond South Asia, Trump also highlighted what he described as his mediation successes in Africa, citing efforts to defuse tensions between Congo and Rwanda. He joked that even with such achievements, he would “never get a Nobel Prize.”
Mixing humor with forceful assertions of American influence, Trump told the military gathering he took pride in “saving millions” through diplomacy and pressure tactics. “It was a great thing,” he said. “And I was very honored.”
