NEW DELHI: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has criticised US President Donald Trump 's recent comments on India-Pakistan tensions , offering a detailed four-point analysis of why these remarks are "deeply disappointing" for India.
Tharoor in a post on X warned that Trump's comments risk reversing decades of hard-earned diplomatic progress.
In his comprehensive critique, Tharoor outlined four major concerns:
“First, it implies a false equivalence between the victim and the perpetrator and seemingly overlooks the US’s own past unwavering stance against Pakistan’s well-documented links to crossborder terrorism,” according to Tharoor.
Tharoor said that the remarks give Pakistan an undeserved negotiating framework. “Second, it offers Pakistan a negotiating framework which it certainly has not earned. India will never negotiate with a terrorist gun pointed at its head,” Tharoor said. Tharoor stated that the statements risk internationalizing the Kashmir issue , which plays into terrorist objectives. “Third, it ‘internationalises’ the Kashmir dispute, an obvious objective of the terrorists. India rejects the idea of a dispute and sees the issue as an internal affair. India has never requested, nor is it likely to seek, any foreign country’s mediation over its problems with Pakistan,” the Congress leader said
The senior Congress said that Trump's approach risks reverting to the old practice of viewing India and Pakistan as diplomatic equals. “And fourth, it ‘re-hyphenates’ India and Pakistan in the global imagination. For decades, world leaders have been encouraged not to club visits to India with visits to Pakistan. Starting with President Clinton in 2000, no US President has done so. This is a major backward step,” Tharoor said.
Tharoor's criticism comes in response to Trump's claims about using trade as leverage to ease India-Pakistan tensions. The US President had suggested that he pressured both nations into de-escalating by threatening to withhold trade opportunities.
“I said, ‘Come on, we're going to do a lot of trade with you guys. Let’s stop it, let’s stop it. If you stop it, we're doing trade. If you don't stop it, we're not going to do any trade.’ People have never really used trade the way I used it, I can tell you. And all of a sudden they said, ‘I think we're gonna stop,’ and they have,”* Trump said.
Meanwhile, the Congress party questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Trump's claims, asking whether the operation against Pakistan was halted due to trade considerations and if India had agreed to American mediation on Kashmir.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh posted on X, “The prime minister, his drumbeaters, and his apologists should answer."
“The prime minister's much-delayed address to the nation was completely upstaged by President Trump's revelations a few minutes earlier. The prime minister was completely silent on them. Has India agreed to US mediation ? Has India agreed to a ‘neutral site’ for a dialogue with Pakistan? Will India now give in to US demands for opening Indian markets in autos, agriculture, and other areas?”* Ramesh asked.
“The months ahead will demand both painstaking diplomacy and collective resolve. One-liners and dialogue-baazi are poor substitutes. We applaud and salute our armed forces unreservedly. They have done the country proud. We are 100 percent with them at all times. But the prime minister still has much to answer for,” he added.
India and Pakistan agreed on Saturday to an immediate ceasefire following heightened cross-border tensions triggered by the Pahalgam terror attack, which claimed 26 lives.
The ceasefire was the result of direct engagement between Indian and Pakistani officials, with Islamabad agreeing to the terms “no preconditions, no postconditions, and no links to other issues.”
Tharoor in a post on X warned that Trump's comments risk reversing decades of hard-earned diplomatic progress.
In his comprehensive critique, Tharoor outlined four major concerns:
Mr Trump’s post is disappointing for India in four important ways: First, it implies a false equivalence between the victim and the perpetrator, and seemingly overlooks the US’ own past unwavering stance against Pakistan’s well-documented links to cross-border terrorism. Second,… https://t.co/Za5cvwq82M
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) May 12, 2025
Tharoor's criticism comes in response to Trump's claims about using trade as leverage to ease India-Pakistan tensions. The US President had suggested that he pressured both nations into de-escalating by threatening to withhold trade opportunities.
“I said, ‘Come on, we're going to do a lot of trade with you guys. Let’s stop it, let’s stop it. If you stop it, we're doing trade. If you don't stop it, we're not going to do any trade.’ People have never really used trade the way I used it, I can tell you. And all of a sudden they said, ‘I think we're gonna stop,’ and they have,”* Trump said.
Meanwhile, the Congress party questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Trump's claims, asking whether the operation against Pakistan was halted due to trade considerations and if India had agreed to American mediation on Kashmir.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh posted on X, “The prime minister, his drumbeaters, and his apologists should answer."
“The prime minister's much-delayed address to the nation was completely upstaged by President Trump's revelations a few minutes earlier. The prime minister was completely silent on them. Has India agreed to US mediation ? Has India agreed to a ‘neutral site’ for a dialogue with Pakistan? Will India now give in to US demands for opening Indian markets in autos, agriculture, and other areas?”* Ramesh asked.
“The months ahead will demand both painstaking diplomacy and collective resolve. One-liners and dialogue-baazi are poor substitutes. We applaud and salute our armed forces unreservedly. They have done the country proud. We are 100 percent with them at all times. But the prime minister still has much to answer for,” he added.
India and Pakistan agreed on Saturday to an immediate ceasefire following heightened cross-border tensions triggered by the Pahalgam terror attack, which claimed 26 lives.
The ceasefire was the result of direct engagement between Indian and Pakistani officials, with Islamabad agreeing to the terms “no preconditions, no postconditions, and no links to other issues.”
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