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US President Donald Trump on Friday (local time) reiterated his repeated assertion of having "solved" eight global conflicts, including the May escalation between India and Pakistan, while expressing confidence in achieving success in ending the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, which he described as his "number nine".
During a bilateral lunch with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House, Trump claimed credit for defusing tensions between the two nuclear-armed nations. "I solved eight wars. Go to Rwanda and the Congo, talk about India and Pakistan... Look at all of the wars that we solved," Trump said. "The Prime Minister of Pakistan said I saved millions of lives... Look at Pakistan and India as an example. That would have been a bad one. Two nuclear nations," he added. Trump's comments on the India-Pakistan conflict refer to the escalation in May following India's Operation Sindoor, a series of precision strikes on nine terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) in retaliation for the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 civilians. He further criticised past US administrations for starting wars rather than ending them, saying, "To the best of my knowledge, we've never had a president who solved one war. Not one war. Bush started a war. A lot of them started a war. They didn't settle it. But I saved tens of millions of lives." Trump had been repeating his claims of playing a key role in helping de-escalate tensions between India and Pakistan on the basis that trade and tariffs were instrumental for the US in preventing the conflicts. India has consistently refuted the claims made by the US President, reiterating its long-standing position that any issues with Pakistan, including those related to Jammu and Kashmir, are to be resolved bilaterally between the two countries. Turning to the ongoing war in Ukraine with Moscow, Trump expressed confidence in his ability to broker peace. "This will be number nine... We are going to have success with this (Ukraine) war," he said, adding, "That's an easy one for me to solve if I have to solve it." Trump also commented on the current conflict involving Pakistan and Afghanistan, suggesting it could be resolved quickly under his leadership, though he acknowledged his primary responsibility remains running the United States. "I love solving wars... You know why? I like stopping people from being killed, and I've saved millions and millions of lives," he stated. Trump's meeting with Zelenskyy came following the US President's hour-long telephone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin in which "great progress" was made. Trump also said that the two leaders will meet in Hungary in the coming few weeks. "President Putin and I will...meet in an agreed-upon location, Budapest, Hungary, to see if we can bring this 'inglorious' war between Russia and Ukraine to an end," Trump said in a post on Truth Social. (ANI)
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