Impossible That PM Modi Will Ask Anyone For Mediation on Kashmir, Says Shashi Tharoor

"If we've to talk to Pakistan. We'll do that directly," Tharoor said

New Delhi: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday lambasted US President Donald Trump over his recent claims that PM Narendra Modi asked him to mediate on the Kashmir issue.

“Trump doesn’t know what’s he saying. Maybe he didn’t understand the issue or nobody briefed him. Impossible that Modi will ask anyone else because it’s our clear policy that we don’t want a third party mediation. If we’ve to talk to Pakistan. We’ll do that directly,” Tharoor said.

I honestly don't think Trump has the slightest idea of what he's talking about. He has either not been briefed or not understood what Modi was saying or what India's position is on 3rd-party mediation. That said, MEA should clarify that Delhi has never sought his intercession. https://t.co/DxRpNu6vw2

— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) July 22, 2019

Meanwhile, Congress party dared Modi to wake up and call Trump’s claim ‘bluff’. “Now, ‘Whitehouse’ puts up POTUS’ (Donald Trump) assertion in ‘black and white’ that Prime Minister Modi asked him to ‘mediate on Kashmir’. When will our Prime Minister ‘wake up’ and call the bluff if President Trump is lying? Or did Prime Minister Modi ask POTUS (Donald Trump) to mediate?” Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said in a tweet .

Earlier on Monday, while addressing a press conference before his meeting with visiting Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan in the White House, Trump had said, “I was with Prime Minister Modi two weeks ago, and we talked about the subject. And he actually said, ‘would you like to be a mediator, or arbitrator’, and I said ‘where?’, and he said ‘Kashmir’, because this has been going on for many, many years. I was surprised for how long it has been going on,” to which Imran Khan interjected to say, “70 years”.

“I think they (India) would like to see it resolved, and I think you (Pakistan) would like to see it resolved. And if I can help, I would love to be mediator,” the US President said.

India had rebuffed Trump’s claim, saying that Modi had never made such a request to him, and stressed that all outstanding issues with Pakistan are “discussed only bilaterally”.

“We have seen the US President’s remarks to the press that he is ready to mediate, if requested by India and Pakistan, on the Kashmir issue. No such request has been made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the US President,” Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in a tweet.