Trump and India’s Modi split over U.S. role in Pakistan ceasefire

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi used his first conversation with President Donald Trump since the early May conflict between India and Pakistan to express his frustration with Trump’s repeated claims that he played a significant role in brokering a ceasefire between the two nuclear-armed countries.

“Prime Minister Modi firmly stated that India does not and will never accept mediation. There is complete political consensus in India on this matter,” Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said in a statement.

During a Tuesday phone call between the two leaders, Modi “clearly conveyed” to Trump that the U.S. played no role in the mediation between India and Pakistan and denied any discussion of a trade deal, Misri said.

The 35-minute call was initiated by Trump, he added.

The White House did not provide a separate readout of the call.

The two leaders last spoke in early May, after an April terror attack by Islamist militants in the Indian-controlled region of Kashmir killed 26 civilians.

India responded with a tit-for-tat bombing in Pakistan, resulting in a four-day conflict that threatened to explode into a broader war fueled by decades of tensions between the two countries.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that the U.S. played a significant role in the eventual de-escalation of tensions between Islamabad and New Delhi.

“I stopped the war between Pakistan and India,” Trump said outside the White House on Wednesday, where he called Modi “a fantastic man.”

Trump has also recently compared the current conflict between Israel and Iran to last month’s India-Pakistan conflict. Trump said Sunday that Israel and Iran should make a deal “just like I got India and Pakistan to make.”

The strident tone of India’s statement Wednesday was most likely due in part to Trump’s decision to host Pakistan’s chief of Army Staff for lunch at the White House.

Trump told reporters at the White House that the lunch was intended to “thank him for not going into the war” and to discuss a potential trade deal with the country.

The president also touted apparent progress on a trade deal with India.

Trump and Modi had been scheduled to meet in-person at the Group of Seven summit in Canada this week. But Trump left a day early, with the White House saying he cut the trip short due to tensions in the Middle East.