WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – The United States pressured the Pakistani government to oust now-former Prime Minister Imran Khan over his neutral stance on Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, independent US media reported Wednesday, citing a classified Pakistani cable.
The report indicated that US officials warned their Pakistani counterparts in a meeting on March 7, 2022 that bilateral relations with Pakistan would be jeopardized if Imran Khan remained in power.
US Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu and then-Pakistani ambassador to the US Asad Majeed Khan were said to have taken part in the meeting.
“I think if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister,” Lu said, according to the document. “Otherwise…I think it will be tough going ahead.”
The Biden administration was infuriated that Imran Khan went through with a planned visit to Moscow regardless of Russia launching its operation in Ukraine.
In the spring of 2022, while he was still prime minister, facing pressure from the US and the European Union to condemn Russia, Khan famously asked the West whether he thought Pakistan was its “slaves.”
“What do you think of us? Are we your slaves…that whatever you say, we will do?” the now former PM said at a rally. “I want to ask the European Union ambassadors: Did you write such a letter to India?”
Lu, according to the report released Wednesday, warned privately that if the situation involving Khan wasn’t resolved, Pakistan would be isolated by its Western allies.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, in response to the revelations, said he would not comment on private diplomatic discussions, but claimed that, “nothing in these purported comments shows the United States taking a position on who the leader of Pakistan should be.”
Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan at his residence, in Lahore, Pakistan, Thursday, Aug. 3, 2023. – Sputnik International, 1920, 08.08.2023
Goal of Imran Kahn’s Arrest to Keep Ex-Pakistan PM “Out of Elections”
The outlet reporting on the secret cable said it was provided by an anonymous source in Pakistani’s military who said he does not have any ties to former prime minister or his party.
On Saturday, media reported that an Islamabad court has sentenced Imran Khan to three years in prison after finding him guilty of “corrupt practices” in the Toshakhana case.
On May 9, Khan was taken into custody on corruption charges after an Islamabad High Court (IHC) hearing in the Al-Qadir Trust case, where he had gone to seek bail in several cases filed against him.
Following his arrest, supporters launched mass protests across the country, resulting in violent clashes with police and attacks on government and military facilities. At least eight people died and about 290 were injured in the unrest.
In October 2022, Pakistan’s election commission stripped Khan of his parliamentary mandate as well as the right to be elected and appointed to both the country’s federal and regional legislatures for five years after finding him guilty of selling 52 valuables stored in the Toshakhana, Pakistan’s national treasury, and concealing information about personal gifts he received.
In April 2022, then-opposition leader and current Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said Khan had sold state treasures in Dubai worth a total of 140 million Pakistani rupees ($500,000). Khan has dismissed the charges against him as a politicized “witch hunt.”
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan speaks during a news conference in Shaukat Khanum hospital, where is being treated for a gunshot wound in Lahore, Pakistan, on Nov. 4, 2022. – Sputnik International, 1920, 05.08.2023
Pakistan’s Ex-PM Imran Khan Arrested and Sentenced to Three Years in Prison
By Sputnik Globe
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Republished by The 21st Century
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