US President Donald Trump met privately with Pakistan’s powerful Army Chief of Staff, Field Marshal Asim Munir at the White House putting the spotlight back on the frayed ties between India and Pakistan after tensions rose over Kashmir. While India’s Modi distanced himself, Trump once again took credit for avoiding a nuclear war. Multiple interests and Pakistan's ambiguous role between Iran, China and the United States are playing in the background.

Washington, DC (AsiaNews) – The meeting between US President Donald Trump and Pakistani Army Chief of Staff Asim Munir was supposed to last an hour, but ended after two.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had been invited to travel to Washington after the G7 summit in Canada, declined, presumably fearing that Trump was simply looking for a photo op to take credit for ending the fighting that broke out between India and Pakistan in May following an incident in Kashmir.

Field Marshal Munir “agreed with me. The reason I had him here was because I wanted to thank him for not going into war” with India, Trump said. “And I want to thank PM Modi as well, who just left a few days ago. We’re working on a trade deal with India and Pakistan. These two very smart people decided not to keep going with a war that could have been a nuclear war. Pakistan and India are two big nuclear powers.”

The day before Munir arrived in the US, India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri spoke about the first phone call between Modi and Trump since the 7-10 May clashes, stressing that, contrary to Trump’s claims, there was no US mediation between the two South Asian neighbours.

“Talks for ceasing military action happened directly between India and Pakistan through existing military channels, and on the insistence of Pakistan. Prime Minister Modi emphasised that India has not accepted mediation in the past and will never do,” Misri reiterated.

This is the first time that a US president has invited the head of the Pakistani army to the White House who is not also the head of state or government, as was the case in the past during periods of military rule.

Asim Munir, a former director general of Military Intelligence (MI), which deals with domestic threats, and a former director general of the infamous Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which focuses on foreign intelligence, is deemed Pakistan’s most powerful man.

Recent military successes in the spat with India have consolidated his position, eliminating the need to overthrow the civilian government, currently led by Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif.

This came about following the ouster of Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has been in prison for almost two years.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said that Trump was hosting Field Marshal Munir after the latter had suggested that the president be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for preventing a nuclear war between India and Pakistan.

However, the Pakistani English-language newspaper Dawn reported that the meeting was not arranged through the usual diplomatic channels, but was instead the result of “unconventional means” by a group of advisers, businessmen and other influential figures.

It is unclear how much this plays in the ongoing war between Israel and Iran. The Pakistanis “know Iran very well, better than most, and they’re not happy about anything. It’s not that they’re bad with Israel. They know them both, actually, but they know Iran better,” Trump said.

As analyst Michael Kugelman wrote in X, “the scheduled Trump-Munir meet shouldn’t only be seen through the lens of the Israel-Iran war. There’s been US-Pak engagement on critical minerals, crypto, CT. Trump takes a deep personal interest in all of these. And Munir is empowered to talk about it all. Also, Kashmir.”

Pakistan recently handed over to the United States a member of the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (IS-KP) group who is believed to be responsible for killing a dozen US soldiers during the US pullout of Afghanistan.

General Michael Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, recently described the Pakistani military as a “phenomenal partner” in counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan, even though 81 per cent of the weapons supplied to Pakistan’s Armed Forces are imported from China.

Beijing recently brokered a meeting between the foreign ministers of Pakistan and Afghanistan, who agreed to cooperate on counterterrorism but also to expand infrastructure projects that are part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Pakistan also shares a long border with Iran (inhabited mostly by ethnic Balochis), and relations between the two countries are ambivalent.

Some sources told Reuters that Munir was expected to try to persuade the US not to get involved in the war. Islamabad has not only condemned the Israeli attacks, but has also intensified diplomatic contacts with Muslim-majority countries in the region.

Experts, however, believe that this is more of an attempt by Pakistan to avoid being directly dragged into the conflict. In recent days, fake news appeared claiming that Islamabad could intervene alongside Tehran, something Pakistani authorities immediately denied.

• pakistan
• india
• united states
• iran
• asim munir
• donald trump
• narendra modi
• kashmir
• border incident