Newwork : Does sharing a stage with the Indian Prime Minister outweigh a warm interaction with Pakistan’s leader?
That is the question many are asking following US President Donald Trump’s interactions with the leaders of the South Asian rivals.
He was on stage with India PM Narendra Modi when he blamed Pakistan for harbouring those responsible for terror attacks in both the US and India.
The next day Mr Trump called himself a “friend” of Pakistan.
He also said Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan was a “great leader”, talked about his many Pakistani friends and proceeded to dodge a question about Mr Modi’s rhetoric against Pakistan by saying that Iran was actually the “number one state of terror in the world”.
Needless to say, this turn of events took a lot of Indian social media by surprise.
A day earlier, buoyed by the success of the shared rally between Mr Modi and Mr Trump in Texas, many had painted the event as yet another victory against Pakistan by India.
Memes showing a disappointed and dejected Imran Khan were widely shared and Twitter pundits called it “another surgical strike” against the country – a reference to India’s claim that it launched a covert attack against militants on Pakistani soil.
