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Shashi Tharoor Takes Jibe At Pakistan; Rejects Trump’s Ceasefire Claim News24 –

National
By Correspondent


Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who is leading an all-party delegation to Brazil, on Tuesday rejected US President Donald Trump’s claims of brokering the cessation of hostilities between India and Pakistan after the heightened tensions following the Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor. He said that it was Pakistan that needed persuading, not India.

“We have enormous respect for the American presidency, and we will speak with that respect in mind. But broadly speaking, our understanding is a bit different… No one needed to persuade us to stop. We had already said to stop. If there was any persuasion by the American president or his senior officials, it would have been persuasion of the Pakistanis. They would have had to be persuaded. We don’t need to be persuaded because we don’t want war. We want to focus on development. That’s the basic message,” Tharoor told news agency ANI, as the delegation prepares for the final leg of its visit in the US.

He further said that India wouldn’t have responded if Pakistan had not escalated, and reiterated that India is not interested in prolonging the conflict between the two countries.

He added: “We had consistently said from the very beginning on May 7th that we are not interested in prolonging the conflict. This is not the opening salvo in some sort of war. All it is is retribution against the terrorists, period. If Pakistan had not reacted, we would not have reacted…”

Tharoor also took a jibe at the Pakistani delegation that will be visiting the US around the same time as the Indian delegation. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is leading the Pakistani side. Pakistan announced its own delegation shortly after India’s call to dispatch multi-party delegations on the world stage to brief global leaders about ‘Operation Sindoor’.

“It’s no accident that the Pakistanis have also sent a delegation abroad, but they’re not going to as many countries as the Indian delegations are. They’re focusing on what they consider a few key capitals, namely. Washington, Brussels. London. That seems to be the thrust of the Pakistani effort. We have gone to all those capitals and more…” he said.

Tharoor called it an “interesting phenomenon of the Pakistani delegation”, adding, “Tomorrow almost they will be in Washington, while we are in Washington on the same date. So there’s going to be perhaps an increase in interest because of the fact that there are two dueling delegations in the same city.”

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