Just hours after Narendra Modi denied claims of American mediation in halting hostilities between India and Pakistan, US President Donald Trump insisted he had “stopped a war” between the South Asian countries – even as he confirmed speaking with the Indian prime minister.
Responding to a reporter’s question on his upcoming lunch with Pakistan’s army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, Trump said on Wednesday (June 18) morning, “Well, I stopped a war … I love Pakistan. I think Modi is a fantastic man. I spoke to him last night. We’re going to make a trade deal with Modi of India, but I stopped the war between Pakistan and India.”
There was no official readout of the phone call from the White House. However, India released a video statement featuring foreign secretary Vikram Misri, who stated that Modi had used the conversation to directly reject Trump’s version of events.
“Prime Minister Modi clearly conveyed to President Trump that at no point during this entire sequence of events [during Operation Sindoor] was there any discussion, at any level, on an India-US trade deal, or any proposal for a mediation by the US between India and Pakistan,” Misri said Tuesday evening in Calgary.
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Modi was supposed to meet with Trump on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada, but the US president left early on the first day itself, before the arrival of the Indian leader.
At the White House event, Trump also credited both Munir and Modi with defusing tensions.
“This man [Munir] was extremely influential in stopping it from the Pakistan side, Modi from the India side, and others. And they were going at it – and they’re both nuclear countries. I got it stopped,” he said.
Until now, the Ministry of External Affairs and external affairs minister S. Jaishankar had only pushed back publicly against Trump’s narrative, though it didn’t stop the US president from repeating it.
But Modi’s phone call was supposed to directly convey India’s unhappiness over Trump claiming that he had persuaded India and Pakistan to stop firing their guns and that he used increased trade access as leverage to do so.
Misri added that Modi reiterated that India’s military operations were paused following talks between the two armies – “and it was initiated at Pakistan’s request”.
“Prime Minister Modi firmly stated that India does not and will never accept mediation. There is complete political consensus in India on this matter,” he said.
The prime minister also described the May 6-7 airstrikes on terror camps as “very measured, precise and non-escalatory”.
He repeated India’s rhetorical message that any goli (bullet) from Pakistan would be met with a gola (shell) in return.
According to Modi’s account, US Vice President J.D. Vance had warned him on the night of May 9 that “Pakistan could launch a major attack on India”.
It was only after India’s “very strong response” on May 9, rendering Pakistani air bases “inoperable”, that Islamabad requested a halt to the military action.
Misri said Trump “listened carefully to the points conveyed by the prime minister and expressed his support towards India’s fight against terrorism”.
“Prime Minister Modi also stated that India no longer views terrorism as a proxy war, but as a war itself, and that India’s Operation Sindoor is still ongoing,” he added.
But, hours later, Trump again said that he stopped the war, likely the 15th time that he has made the claim since hostilities ended on May 10.
Trump had also floated the idea of a brief stopover by Modi in Washington on his return journey from Canada. According to Misri, the Indian prime minister declined, citing prior commitments.
Modi was scheduled to leave Canada at 6:20 p.m. local time on Tuesday and head to Croatia for a tightly packed official visit lasting less than nine hours. A detour to Washington would not only have left very little time but would also have required a carefully choreographed schedule to sidestep an awkward overlap with Field Marshal Asim Munir, who was being hosted at a White House luncheon the very next afternoon.
Unlike India, which rejects third-party mediation outright as a long-standing foreign policy position, Pakistan has echoed Trump’s claim that he played a decisive role in halting the four-day clash that followed the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam.
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