KARACHI: United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that he was “honoured” to meet Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir for talks at the White House — also marking the first time a US president has hosted army chief at the White House unaccompanied by senior civilian officials.
The meeting, listed on the president’s official schedule, was held in the Cabinet Room and closed to the press.
The lunch is being seen in Islamabad as a major diplomatic win, particularly because earlier this month, an Indian delegation met US Vice President JD Vance and Indian media depicted it as a diplomatic success, contrasting it with the apparent inability of the Pakistani delegation to secure a similar meeting. Gen Munir’s invitation to the White House is now being projected by officials in Islamabad as a diplomatic counterpoint to those narratives.
When questioned about the meeting in an interaction with the media later, Trump said, “I was honoured to meet him (Field Marshal Munir) today.”
Field Marshal Munir, overseas Pakistanis pledge joint efforts for a secure, prosperous Pakistan
Asked whether the talks included the current Iran-Israel conflict, Trump said: “They (Pakistan) 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.
“He (Field Marshal Munir) agreed with me. The reason I had him here was that I wanted to thank him for not going into the war [with India]. And I want to thank PM [Narendra] 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.“
Trump’s lunch with Field Marshal Munir represented a major boost in US-Pakistan ties, which had largely languished under Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, as both assiduously courted India as part of efforts to push back against China.
Earlier, when questioned by reporters on the White House lawn about the diplomatic outcomes expected from the meeting with Field Marshal Munir, Trump remarked, “This man was extremely influential in stopping it (India-Pakistan fighting) from the Pakistan side.”
Trump also once again claimed credit for the Pakistan-India ceasefire despite Modi maintaining in a conversation with him late on Tuesday that the breakthrough was achieved through talks between the two militaries and not US mediation.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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