Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif gave US President Donald Trump all the credit for “stopping a war” with India as he spoke on stage at the Sharm El-Sheikh Peace Summit for Gaza in Egypt on Monday, October 13.
Sharif, invited to address the global leaders’ gathering by Trump, called the latter “genuinely a man of peace”, and stressed that Pakistan sought the Nobel Peace Prize for him “for his outstanding, extraordinary contributions… to stop the war between India and Pakistan and then achieve a ceasefire along with his very wonderful team”.
The Pakistan leader repeated his “nomination of “this great President” for the Nobel Peace Prize, now for 2026, and thanked him for achieving a truce in Gaza too.
Trump returned to the dais and called Sharif’s words “beautiful”, joking that there wasn’t anything left to say: “Let’s go home!”
“India and Pakistan are going to live very nicely together; right?” he then said, exchanging smiles with Sharif.
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It was yet another moment of bonhomie between the two leaders while, in India, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor suggested that PM Narendra Modi’s government may have missed an opportunity by sending only a Minister of State, Kirti Vardhan Singh, for the summit.
Trump’s much-repeated ceasefire claim and its buttressing by Pakistan — from a prominent global stage — comes when India has not played along with the claim that he forced the two countries into a truce when Delhi carried out Operation Sindoor in May against Pak terror bases after an attack in Kashmir.
Trump had repeated his claim probably a 50th time, while on his way to the Middle East for the summit earlier on Monday too.
What Modi said on Trump and Gaza peace push
The main force behind the Gaza peace plan, Trump is co-hosting the summit with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Earlier in the day, Trump addressed the Israeli Parliament, where he praised PM Benjamin Netanyahu and issued another to Palestinian group Hamas against violence.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was invited to the Egypt summit but chose to depute the MoS for Foreign Affairs, welcomed the Gaza ceasefire in a post on X.
“We welcome the release of all hostages after over two years of captivity. Their freedom stands as a tribute to the courage of their families, the unwavering peace efforts of President Trump and the strong resolve of Prime Minister Netanyahu. We support President Trump’s sincere efforts to bring peace to the region,” PM Modi wrote on X.
The summit is being attended by leaders of at least 20 other countries, Sisi’s office said.
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Should Modi have gone? Tharoor addressed the question
“Strategic restraint or missed opportunity?” asked Congress MP and former global diplomat Shashi Tharoor in a post on X on Monday.
He clarified that while this was “no reflection on Kirti Vardhan Singh, whose competence is not in question”, but “given the galaxy of grandees present, India’s choice could be seen as signalling a preference for strategic distance, which our statements don’t convey”.
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And, for reasons of protocol access alone, India’s voice thus may carry less weight than it could have, Tharoor further said in the X post. “In a region reshaping itself, our relative absence is puzzling,” he said.
On the invitee/attendee list are Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Qatar’s Emir, who coordinated with Trump to initiate the peace process.
Mahmoud Abbas Abbas, leader of the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority, will attend too, while Netanyahu chose to give it a miss.
Other world leaders attending the summit include French President Emmanuel Macron, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, UK PM Keir Starmer, Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez, Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, and European Council President Antonio Costa, besides UN Secretary-General António Guterres and Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit. Canada’s PM Mark Carney and Iraq’s PM Mohammed Shia al-Sudani are among the attendees too.
The Sharm El-Sheikh Peace Summit is being held just after ceasefire came into effect in Gaza. A prisoner-hostage swap was done earlier in the day. Gazans have started returning to the remains of their war-torn homes. At least 67,000 people were killed in Israeli action in Gaza since October 7, 2023, when a Hamas attack in Israel killed around 1,200 people.
Sharif at it, again
For Shehbaz Sharif, this is the second meeting with Trump in just about a month after they met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City in September. Pak Army chief Asim Munir was with him — whom Trump on Monday called his “favourite Field Marshal”.
India was represented at the UNGA by its foreign minister S Jaishankar, who slammed Pakistan in his speech for its support to terrorism.
Trump has consistently cozied up to Pakistan, whose leaders have backed his ceasefire claim and the desire for a Nobel prize. He has not got it this year, but remains hopeful.
Towards India, he has been “mercurial”, again in Tharoor’s words.