Trump thought Nepal and Bhutan were part of India: US intelligence officers

Washington, Feb 4: It's more expected from filmstars and celebrities but when the most powerful man on earth - the president of the United States - makes a blunder of such proportion, it becomes far too serious an issue.

On Saturday, February 2, TIME magazine reported that Donald Trump had the idea that the two Himalayan countries of Nepal and Bhutan are part of India.

According to the report, the incident happened when Trump's advisors came up with a map of South Asia during a briefing of the region. The officials reportedly claimed that Trump pointed at the map and said that he knew Nepal was an Indian territory.

When he was rectified and told Nepal stands as an independent nation, he said Bhutan was a part of India.

"...Trump's advisors brought a map of the region from Afghanistan to Bangladesh, according to intelligence officers with knowledge of the meeting and congressional officials who were briefed on it. Trump, they said, pointed at the map and said he knew that Nepal was part of India, only to be told that it is an independent nation. When said he was familiar with Bhutan and knew it, too, was part of India, his briefers told him that Bhutan was an independent kingdom," the TIME report said.

Last August, Politico had said in a report that Trump mispronounced Nepal as "Nipple" and Bhutan as "Button" during a briefing ahead of his meeting prior to his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2017.

Trump had lashed out at the US intelligence agencies last week accusing them of being "passive and naïve" about Iran, which is perceived to be one of the major enemies of his administration.

"The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran," Trump said in a tweet.