Shashi Tharoor shuts down Trump’s India-Pak claim with a flourish: ‘No one needed to persuade us’

Ahead of his delegation's visit to the United States, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor shut down President Donald Trump’s claims on brokering the peace deal between India and Pakistan, following days of heightened conflict, saying it was Islamabad that needed persuading and not New Delhi.

With a flourish, Shashi Tharoor shut down all speculations, saying if Donald Trump or his senior officials had to persuade anyone to call off the conflict, “it would have been the persuasion of the Pakistanis.”

“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,” Shashi Tharoor said.

He said, “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.”

Shashi Tharoor also took potshots at the Pakistani delegation that would be arriving in the US just around the same time as the Indian delegation. In a move that appeared to mimic India's call to dispatch multi-party delegations at international forums and inform global leaders about Operation Sindoor, Pakistan shortly after announced its own delegation to advocate for ‘peace’ on the world stage. The delegation will be lead by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

Calling it an “interesting phenomenon of the Pakistani delegation”, Shashi Tharoor said, “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.”

“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.”

Speaking on the International Monetary Fund's bailout package to Pakistan, the Congress MP said the money could well be spent on getting people out of poverty. “We don't begrudge any country its development if the money is to be spent truly on getting people out of poverty or helping deal with development issues. Why would we object? We are humane. We believe in all sorts of well-being of the poorest of the poor in any country.”

“But if that money simply enables Pakistan to divert more resources to supporting terrorism, to arming themselves to attack us, and so on, then it would be most unfortunate,” Shashi Tharoor said.