New York/Washington, 23 July

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed yet again that he stopped the recent "war" between India and Pakistan and that five planes were shot down in the conflict.

He also claimed that the conflict between India and Pakistan "was probably going to end up in a nuclear war".

"We stopped wars between India and Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda," he said at a reception in the White House with the Congress members.

"They shot down five planes and it was back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I called them and said, 'Listen, no more trade. If you do this, you're not going to be good…They're both powerful nuclear nations and that would have happened, and who knows where that would have ended up. And I stopped it'," he added.

Trump claimed the US took out Iran's entire nuclear capability and also stopped the conflict between Kosovo and Serbia.

"And a couple of others that we didn't stop a war, but we stopped what probably could have ended up in a war. We do that on the House as compliments of America. Okay, do you think (former US President Joe) Biden would do that? I don't think so. Do you think he ever heard of any of those countries? I don't think so,” Trump said.

Trump, who has repeatedly said that he stopped the conflict between India and Pakistan through trade, last Friday said for the first time that “five jets were shot down” during the fighting.

“You had India, Pakistan, that was going… in fact, planes were being shot out of the air, five, five, four or five. But I think five jets were shot down actually…that was getting worse and worse, wasn't it? That was looking like it was going to go, these are two serious nuclear countries and they were hitting each other,” he had said at the White House in his remarks made during a dinner that he hosted for the Republican senators.

Meanwhile, Acting US Representative Ambassador Dorothy Shea said at an open debate in the UN Security Council on Tuesday on ‘Multilateralism and Peaceful Settlement of Disputes’ held under Pakistan’s presidency of the Council that across the globe, the United States continues to work with parties to disputes, wherever possible, to find peaceful solutions.

With Pakistan Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar presiding over the Council meeting, Shea said that in the past three months alone, “we have seen the US leadership deliver de-escalations between Israeland Iran, between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, and between India and Pakistan.”

“The United States, under President Trump’s leadership, played an important role in encouraging the parties to reach these resolutions, which we applaud and support,” Shea said.

Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish, India's Permanent Representative to the UN, in his statement in the UNSC chamber spoke about the Pahalgam terror attack for which The Resistance Front, a front for Pakistan-based terror organisation Lashkar-e-Tayyiba had claimed responsibility.

Harish emphasised that there should be a “serious cost” to states who “violate the spirit of good neighbourliness and international relations by fomenting cross-border terrorism.”

In the UNSC statement, the Council members had underlined the need to hold perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of this reprehensible act of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice.

Harish emphasised that India’s response was focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature.

“On achieving its primary objectives, a cessation of military activities was directly concluded at the request of Pakistan,” he said.