Spotlight on Pak-India conflict again as Trump continues to make case for Nobel Peace Prize

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US President Donald Trump attends a meeting with an oil industry executives, at the White House in Washington, DC, US on Jan 9, 2026. — Reuters
US President Donald Trump attends a meeting with an oil industry executives, at the White House in Washington, DC, US on Jan 9, 2026. — Reuters
US President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio attend a meeting with oil industry executives, at the White House in Washington, DC, US on Jan 9, 2026. — Reuters
US President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio attend a meeting with oil industry executives, at the White House in Washington, DC, US on Jan 9, 2026. — Reuters

US President Donald Trump on Friday continued to make a case for him deserving the Nobel Peace Prize, yet again highlighting his role in ending the May 2025 conflict between Pakistan and India.

Taking media queries after a meeting with oil and gas executives at White House in Washington, Trump was asked about Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado’s offer to share her Nobel Peace Prize with the US president.

“Norway is very embarrassed with what took place,” Trump said; the Norwegian Nobel Committee is responsible for selecting the Nobel Peace Prize laureates.

“Whether people like Trump or don’t like Trump, I settled eight wars — big ones,” Trump said — a claim that he has repeated in the past.

“Some going on for 36 years, 32 years, 31 years, 28 years, 25 years. Some just getting ready to start, like India and Pakistan, where already eight jets were shot out in the air,” Trump said.

He pointed out that he arranged a ceasefire between the two countries in “rapid order without nuclear weapons”.

“I can’t think of anybody in history that should get the Nobel prize more than me, and I don’t want to be bragging but nobody else settled wars. Obama got the Nobel prize. He had no idea why. He still has no idea,” Trump said, calling former US president Barack Obama a “bad president”.

“You should get the Nobel prize for every war you stopped. These were major wars. These were wars that nobody thought could be stopped. President Putin called me [and] he said about two of the wars that he’s been trying to stop them for 10 years [but] he wasn’t able to do it. He couldn’t believe it,” Trump said.

“So, in theory, you should get the Nobel prize for every war you stopped. Every war was major. But I don’t care about that; I care about saving lives. I’ve saved tens of millions of lives,” he added, before recalling his Oval Office meeting with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in September.

“The prime minister of Pakistan came here and he made a very public statement. He said that President Trump saved a minimum [of] 10 million lives having to do with Pakistan and India, and that was going to be raging.”

Tensions between India and Pakistan had flared in April 2025 when a deadly terror attack on tourists in occupied Kashmir was, without evidence, blamed on Islamabad, which strongly refuted the allegations.

The two sides traded a series of tit-for-tat blows that ended in May with the declaration of a ceasefire by Trump, who has since repeatedly talked about his role in ending the military escalation between the two countries.

India has differed with Trump’s claims that the ceasefire between the two countries resulted from his intervention and his threats to sever trade talks.

Initially stating that five jets were shot down during the May conflict — albeit without specifying of which side — Trump gradually raised that number to seven in October, and then eight in November.

He has also praised Chief of the Defence Forces and Chief of the Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir on several occasions, calling him a “highly respected general”, a “great fighter” and “my favourite”.

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