United States President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that he prevented a major escalation, a nuclear confrontation, between India and Pakistan during
the three-day conflict in May last year. Earlier this week, the US President even began his second year in office, claiming that New Delhi and Islamabad were “ready to go nuclear” and that his intervention averted disaster. However, the chief of international nuclear watchdogs, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), contradicted his claim at the World Economic Forum in Davos by dismissing his remarks as “political views” and that there is “no record of political inspection”, according to a media report. Rafael Mariano Grossi, the head of IAEA, contradicted US President Trump's claims while speaking with NDTV on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. "There was no indication of any involvement of nuclear weapons in this conflict, which was, of course, of a conventional nature," he said. "There hasn't been any nuclear test proper. What we have seen is testing and operation of means of delivery, which is a different thing from nuclear weapons, as you know," Grossi told NDTV. Earlier this month, Indian Army chief General Upendra Dwivedi have revealed that no nuclear discussion took place between the officials of India and Pakistan during Operation Sindoor. "As far as nuclear rhetoric is concerned, I would like to say that there was no discussion on nuclear in the DGMO talks and whatever nuclear rhetoric was given was given by the politicians or given by the local public in Pakistan. I have no indication that anything of that sort came from the military," Gen Upendra Dwivedi said. Trump has claimed about 90 times that he stopped the conflict between India and Pakistan, an assertion he has been making repeatedly, on various platforms in the US and around the world, since May 10 last year when he announced on social media that India and Pakistan agreed to a “full and immediate” ceasefire after a “long night” of talks mediated by Washington. However, India has categorically denied any third party intervention. Earlier this week, Trump touted ending the conflict between India and Pakistan as among the accomplishments of the first year of his second term in the White House, saying the two countries “were going to go nuclear" in his opinion, and that he saved millions of lives by stopping the war. "Pakistan and India, they were really going at it. Eight planes shot down. They were going to go nuclear in my opinion,” Trump said at a lengthy news conference Tuesday on the one-year anniversary of his second term in office. Addressing a packed White House press briefing room, Trump said the prime minister of Pakistan, who visited him in Washington last year, said that “'President Trump saved 10 million people, and maybe much more than that’. They're both nuclear countries.” India had launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting terror infrastructure at nine known locations in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation for the April 22 Pahalgam attack that killed 26 civilians. Pakistan responded to the Indian attack on terror infrastructure with a swarm of drones and missiles, all tracked and destroyed by Indian forces.
In response, Indian armed forces mounted fierce counter-attacks and inflicted heavy damage to several airbases in Pakistan. The hostilities ended with an understanding on stopping the military actions following talks between the Director Generals of Military Operations of both sides on the afternoon of May 10 following a request by Islamabad.
