Cong fires fresh salvos at PM as Putin aide says Trump halted Indo-Pak conflict

The Congress on Thursday fired fresh salvos at Prime Minister Narendra Modi after a top Kremlin aide said US President Donald Trump’s personal involvement halted the four day India-Pakistan conflict after the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack.

In a statement revealing contents of the 75-minute phone conversation Russian President Vladimir Putin had with Trump on June 4, Russian Presidential aide Yury Ushakov said armed conflict between India and Pakistan was additionally discussed in talks apart from the Russia-Ukraine war, the principal issue.

“Additionally, West Asia was discussed as well as the armed conflict between India and Pakistan, which has been halted with the personal involvement of Trump,” Ushakov said in his comments on the Putin-Trump conversation.

The Congress cited Ushakov’s comments today to question PM Modi.

AICC general secretary communications Jairam Ramesh asked the Prime Minister to clarify matters.

“Ushakov has revealed that the four-day India-Pakistan conflict came up in the telephonic conversation of Putin and Trump. Ushakov has let it be known that it was the personal involvement of Trump that halted the armed hostilities between India and Pakistan,” Ramesh said.

Ironically, the Congress’ continued to speak in two voices on purported US mediation in halting the India-Pakistan conflict.

While the Congress officially cornered the PM, party’s four-term MP Shashi Tharoor dismissed US mediation claims. Interacting at the National Press Club in Washington on Thursday, Tharoor said India needed no mediation to halt hostilities.

“All I can say is that we have enormous respect for the American presidency and the American President. All we can say for ourselves is that we have never particularly wanted to ask anyone to mediate,” said Tharoor, who is leading a multi-party delegation on Operation Sindoor to the US.

Tharoor said involving the United States as a mediator between India and Pakistan would imply a false equivalence. “Mediation is not a term we are particularly willing to entertain,” he said. “There is no equivalence between terrorists and their victims. There is no equivalence between a country that provides safe haven to terrorism (Pakistan) and a flourishing multi-party democracy that is focused on development and governance (India),” he added.