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New Delhi: US President Donald Trump on Sunday praised Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and army chief General Asim Munir as “great people,” expressing confidence that he could “quickly” resolve the ongoing Pakistan-Afghanistan conflict. Speaking at the signing ceremony of the Thailand-Cambodia peace deal on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur, Trump said his administration had successfully ended “eight wars in eight months.”
Referring to the recent Thai-Cambodia clashes, he said, “We’re averaging one a month. There is only one left, although I heard that Pakistan and Afghanistan have started up. But I’ll get that solved very quickly. I know them both. And the Pakistan Field Marshal and the Prime Minister are great people.”
Trump described conflict resolution as something he could “do nicely,” adding that if he could “save millions of lives,” it would be the greatest achievement possible. “I can’t think of any President that ever solved one war. They start wars; they don’t solve them,” he said, claiming that no leader in history had accomplished what his administration had achieved. At the ceremony, the US President called the Thai-Cambodia peace agreement a “historic moment” and said he was “honoured” to have played a part in ending that conflict.
Trump’s comments come amid his growing diplomatic engagement with South and Southeast Asian nations. Earlier this month, from the Oval Office, he recalled Sharif’s remarks during a recent US visit, where the Pakistani leader credited Trump with “saving millions of lives” by mediating between India and Pakistan after the April 22 terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam.
The attack had triggered a brief but intense military operation by India, codenamed Operation Sindoor, targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The conflict de-escalated after four days following a ceasefire understanding between the two sides.
At the Gaza Peace Summit in Egypt, Sharif had again lauded Trump’s role and suggested that the US President be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for “outstanding efforts” in preventing war. Sharif met Trump at the White House in September during the UN General Assembly session, his first visit as prime minister, accompanied by General Asim Munir, who has visited Washington twice this year, including a lunch hosted by Trump earlier in the summer.
