Trump repeats claim India, Pakistan 'made peace' after his threat to snap trade deals
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New York (PTI): US President Donald Trump has once again reiterated that India and Pakistan "made peace" in May after he threatened the two nuclear-armed neighbours with snapping trade deals if they continued their military conflict, a claim he has repeated several times since then.
Addressing the America Business Forum Miami in Florida on Wednesday, Trump also claimed that eight planes "were shot down" during the recent military conflict between India and Pakistan, without specifying to which country they belonged.
Until now, Trump has been maintaining that seven planes were shot down during the conflict.
He said in eight months, he ended eight wars, including Kosovo and Serbia, and Congo and Rwanda, that were going on for a long time.
“Pakistan and India...I was in the midst of a trade deal with both of them, and then... I heard they were going to war. Seven planes were shot down, and the eighth was really badly wounded... Eight planes were shot down essentially.
“I said, this is war... 'I'm not going to make any trade deals with you guys unless you agree to peace'. The two nations said, 'No way. This has nothing to do...’ I said, ‘It has everything to do. You are nuclear powers. I'm not trading with you. We're not making any deals with you if you're at war with each other'," Trump claimed.
“A day later, I get a call saying, 'We made peace'. They stopped. I said, 'Thank you. Let's do trade'. Isn't that great? Tariffs did that... Without tariffs, that would have never happened," Trump said amid applause.
Since May 10, when Trump announced on social media that India and Pakistan had agreed to a “full and immediate ceasefire" after a “long night” of talks mediated by Washington, he has repeated his claim over 60 times that he “helped settle” the tensions between the two neighbouring countries.
India has consistently denied any third-party intervention.
India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation for the April 22 Pahalgam attack that killed 26 civilians.
India and Pakistan reached an understanding on May 10 to end the conflict after four days of intense cross-border drone and missile strikes.
In his remarks in Miami, Trump went on to add that he helped solve the conflict between Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, Armenia and Azerbaijan and Cambodia and Thailand.
“All of them were in war… Some of the wars were 32 years old. One was 38 years old. I got some of these settled in an hour. No help from the United Nations at all," Trump said.
He added that around the world, America is making peace through strength “because they know they're not going to mess around with us. Nobody's going to mess around with us".
Trump also spoke about the deals he made with China last week, as well as with Japan and Malaysia.
“All great economic deals, great for everybody," the US president said.
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Screenwriter Salim Khan on ventilator support and stable, say doctors
Mumbai (PTI): Veteran screenwriter Salim Khan suffered a brain haemorrhage which has been tackled, is on ventilator support as a safeguard and stable, doctors treating him said on Wednesday, a day after he was admitted to the Lilavati Hospital here.
The 90-year-old, one half of the celebrated Salim-Javed duo which scripted films such as "Sholay", "Deewar" and "Don" with Javed Akhtar, is in the ICU and recovery might take some time given his age.
"His blood pressure was high for which we treated him and we had to put him on a ventilator because we wanted to do certain investigations. Now the ventilator was put as a safeguard so that his situation doesn't get worse. So it is not that he is critical," Dr Jalil Parkar told reporters.
"We did the investigations that were required and today we have done a small procedure on him, I will not go into the details. The procedure done is called DSA (digital subtraction angiography). The procedure has been accomplished, he is fine and stable and shifted back to ICU. By tomorrow, we hope to get him off the ventilator. All in all, he is doing quite well," he added.
Asked whether he suffered a brain haemorrhage, the doctor said, "Unko thoda haemorrhage hua tha, which we’ve tackled. No surgery is required.
As concern over Khan's health mounted, his children, including superstar Salman Khan and Arbaaz Khan, daughter Alvira, and sons-in-law Atul Agnihotri and Aayush Sharma, have been seen outside the hospital along with other well-wishers. His long-time partner Akhtar was also seen coming out of the hospital.
Khan, a household name in the 70s and 80s, turned 90 on November 24 last year. It was the day Dharmendra, the star of many of his films, including "Sholay", "Seeta aur Geeta" and "Yaadon Ki Baraat", passed away.
Hailing from an affluent family in Indore, Khan arrived in Mumbai in his 20s with dreams of stardom. He was good looking and confident he would make a mark in the industry as an actor. But that did not happen. And then, after struggling for close to a decade and getting confined to small roles in films, he changed lanes.
He worked as an assistant to Abrar Alvi and soon met Akhtar to form one of Hindi cinema's most formidable writing partnerships. They worked together on two dozen movies with most of them achieving blockbuster status.
Other than "Sholay", "Deewar" and "Don", Khan and Akhtar also penned "Trishul", "Zanjeer", "Seeta Aur Geeta", "Haathi Mere Saathi", "Yaadon Ki Baarat" and "Mr India".
