NEW YORK: In a fresh claim, US President Donald Trump said “five jets were shot down” during the conflict between India and Pakistan in May and repeated his assertion that the fighting ended following his intervention.
The US President did not specify whether the jets were lost by either of the two countries or whether he was referring to combined losses by both sides.
In virtually rejecting Trump’s claim of ending the conflict, New Delhi has been maintaining that the two sides halted their military actions following direct talks between their militaries without any mediation by the US.
Speaking at the White House during a dinner he hosted for Republican senators on Friday, Trump said: “You had India, Pakistan, that was going… in fact, planes were being shot out of the air…four or five. But I think five jets were shot down actually…that was getting worse and worse, wasn’t it?
“That was looking like it was going to go, these are two serious nuclear countries, and they were hitting each other,” he said.