Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif used his address at the United Nations General Assembly on Friday to boast about his country’s air force, claiming Pakistani pilots destroyed seven Indian fighter jets earlier this year during a confrontation with India.
“Our falcons took flight and turned seven Indian jets into scrap,” Sharif declared, praising the skill of his air force pilots. He alleged that Pakistan had acted in “self-defence” against what he called unprovoked aggression from India in May, following the deadly Pahalgam terrorist attack that killed 26 people.
Sharif’s statement referred to “Operation Sindoor,” which he claimed India launched on May 7, 2025, in response to the attack. According to him, Pakistan’s retaliation forced India into “humiliation.”
India has consistently dismissed such assertions from Islamabad as “baseless,” pointing out that Pakistan has never provided evidence to support claims of downing Indian jets. In its official stance, New Delhi stressed that its retaliatory strikes in May were “measured and non-escalatory,” aimed strictly at terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, while avoiding civilian and military targets. India said hostilities ended only after Pakistan’s Director General of Military Operations called his Indian counterpart to seek a ceasefire.
The episode again highlighted the bitter tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, each accusing the other of provocation while denying responsibility for escalating violence.
Sharif’s UN address came shortly after he and Pakistan’s army chief Asim Munir met U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House. Sharif praised Trump as a “man of peace” for his role in brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, and lauded what he called Trump’s “courageous and decisive” leadership in seeking to defuse regional conflicts.