After Donald Trump's Pakistan tweet, Rahul Gandhi says PM Modi must give US president another hug

Prime Minister NarendraModi needs to 'quickly' hug the President of the United States Donald Trump, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi believes.

Gandhi, who in recent days has shown a surprising penchant for witty social media posts, made this observation on Twitter. The Congress VP, who is soon expected to take over as presidentof the party, did so while sharing a tweet in which Trump shows appreciation for the current Pakistani leadership.

With his post, Gandhi was seemingly taking a sarcastic dig at PM Modi, who has often been pictured hugging world leaders, and his diplomacy, which government backers have credited for the US toughening its position on Pakistan and its support for terrorism.

In recent times, the Donald Trump administration in the US has increasingly called Pakistani outover its support for militancy. Senior Trump administration officials have directly accused Islamabad of not doing enough to combat terrorism and terrorist groups operating in and around its soil.

President Donald Trump himself had explicitly named Pakistan as among countries that provide 'safe havens' to terrorists and has warned Islamabad of negative consequences if it did not do its bit to fight terrorism.

In fact, when Prime Minister Modi paid a visit to Washington, India and US issued a joint statement that called on Pakistan not to allow its soil to be used to breed terrorism. Incidentally, Modi's trip to the US saw the prime minister hug President Trump at least three times, a detail that Congress VP Rahul Gandhi was playing on in his tweet.

The US ratcheting up diplomatic pressure on Pakistan over its support for terrorism was seen favourably in India. The US, mindful of the fact that it needs Islamabad to help it with the war in Afghanistan, has usually avoided publicly naming and shaming Pakistan over terrorism.

But, under Donald Trump, this seemed to be changing.

Then last week, the US President sent out a tweet saying, "Starting to develop a much better relationship with Pakistan and its leaders. I want to thank them for their cooperation on many fronts."

Trump's tweet came against the backdrop of Pakistani security forces rescuing an American woman and her family, who were held captive for five years by the Haqqani Network, a militant group believed to have links to the Taliban.

The Pakistani operation to rescue the American woman Caitlan Coleman, her Canadian husband Joshua Boyle and three of their children was launched on basis on intelligence inputs provided by US agencies.

The operation is being seen in the US as one that could lead uplift relations between Washington and Islamabad, something that would definitely ring alarm bells in New Delhi.

Does Trump's tweet really indicate that the US is warming up to Pakistan? That remains to be seen. Diplomats over the world are still figuring out the new paradigm introduced by Trump since entering the White House - Twitter.

The US president has often emotively tweeted about world affairs, but whether his comments on the social media website amount to actual changes in American foreign policy is far from clear.