Trump says India, Pakistan should 'have dinner together'. Analysts think US stance complicates matters for India

Despite India's unenthusiastic stance on US intervention in the India-Pakistan conflict, US President Donald Trump continued to meddle in the topic, projecting himself as a peacemaker. 

In Saudi Arabia for the first leg of his Middle East tour, Trump suggested that India and Pakistan should "have a nice dinner together" to help ease tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours. He also sought credit for brokering peace to avert a "potential nuclear war" between India and Pakistan, which he said could have killed millions.

"I think they're actually getting along. Maybe we can even get them together a little bit, Marco, where they go out and have a nice dinner together. Wouldn't that be nice?," the US President, who is on a three-nation Middle East visit, asked.

This, despite India's efforts to downplay the US role in the ceasefire. Observers and experts believe that Trump's stance isn't helping, considering that he praised Pakistan along with India, while not confronting how the terror attack at Pahalgam had triggered the conflict.  

"When Mr. Trump comes in and says, you know, ‘I spoke to both sides,’ he’s kind of equating," said Nirupama Menon Rao, a former Indian ambassador to Washington, told The New York Post. 

She added that Trump's approach has only made the matter complex for India, which wants to be "viewed independently and not through the lens of conflict with Pakistan".

"India and Pakistan are being hyphenated once again," Rao said. "India had genuinely felt that we had broken free of that hyphenation and that Pakistan had kind of receded into the shadows as far as the U.S. was concerned," she added.  

While Pakistan had lavished praise on Trump for his intervention, many in India, including those close to the Centre, had not approved of the ceasefire. Analysts feel Trump did not bash Pakistan enough for its role. 

"The last few days have been hard on India. India’s battles against Pakistan-sponsored terror have been invariably lonely ones,” Indrani Bagchi, a New Delhi-based foreign policy analyst, said on X. "The U.S. and China may be strategic rivals everywhere. But they come together in Pakistan. That reality has not changed," she added.

Michael Kugelman, a foreign policy analyst, told the BBC that India has interpreted the ceasefire differently from the US and Pakistan. "Also, since it was put together so hastily, the accord may lack the proper guarantees and assurances one would need at such a tense moment," Kugelman added.