President Donald Trump offered to serve as a mediator between India and Pakistan after their respective armed forces exchanged volleys of conventional weapons in an escalation of a long-running conflict that has raised the chance of escalation by the two nuclear-armed states.
Trump told reporters Wednesday in the Oval Office during a swearing-in ceremony for the new American ambassador to China David Purdue, that the latest skirmish has been “so terrible” and expressed confidence in his own ability to settle the dispute based on the fact that he has good personal relations with both nations.
“My position is I get along with both. I know both very well, and I want to see them work it out. I want to see them stop, and hopefully they can stop now,” he said.
The president’s comments came less than a day after Indian jets conducted airstrikes into Pakistani territory in retaliation for last month’s deadly terror attack by militants in Kashmir, the disputed border region controlled by India.
Pakistani officials said at least 21 died in the airstrikes, just four fewer than were killed in the Kashmir attack that was carried out by militants armed with rifles. The Indian government blames Islamabad for allegedly supporting insurgent movements in the heavily-militarized border region.
Trump expressed hope the Indian airstrikes would serve to end this latest round of skirmishing between the countries, which fought limited wars in 1947 and 1965.
“They’ve gotten tit for tat, so hopefully they can stop now … we get along with both the countries very well, good relationships with both. And I want to see it stop. And if I can do anything to help, I will, I will be there,” he said.
The recent hostilities between India and Pakistan have raised the once-unthinkable possibility of two nuclear-armed states exchanging fire with thermonuclear weapons.
Neither country is a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and India has been a declared nuclear power since 1974 when it detonated its first nuclear weapons test.
Pakistan’s government had begun developing nuclear weapons two years earlier after losing control of Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) in a civil war. That effort finally bore fruit in 1998 when Pakistan detonated five underground nuclear tests in response to an Indian nuclear weapons test several weeks earlier.
