U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday defended London Mayor Sadiq Khan following President Donald Trump's statement that Khan was "terrible" and wanted to put Britain's capital under Islamic religious law, calling the claim "ridiculous."

Trump made the comments during his address at the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday.

"I look at London where you have a terrible mayor, a terrible, terrible mayor," the president said.

"It's been so changed, so changed. Now they want to go to Shariah law, but you're in a different country; you can't do that."

Starmer told ITV London he would not get into a "war of words."

"But what I will say is this, because it is important. You saw from the state visit last week that there are plenty of things on which the president and I agree, and we are working together.

"There are some issues on which we disagree. And what the president said about the mayor — who's doing a really good job, in fact, driving down serious crime — what he said about the introduction of Shariah law was ridiculous nonsense," he said.

"I support our mayor. I'm really proud of the fact we have a Muslim mayor of a very diverse city.

"We do work with the Americans on a huge number of issues. On this issue I disagree, and I stand with our mayor," Starmer added.

Khan, the first Muslim mayor of a Western capital city, told reporters Wednesday: "People are wondering what it is about this Muslim mayor who leads a liberal, multicultural, progressive, and successful city that means I appear to be living rent-free inside Donald Trump's head.

"I think — as Donald Trump has shown — he is racist, he is sexist, he is misogynistic, and he is Islamophobic," he added.

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