West News Wire: According to a classified document released by a website, Washington lobbied for the ouster of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan due to his impartial stance on the conflict in Ukraine.
According to the paper made public by The Intercept, US State Department representatives encouraged Khan’s ouster as prime minister with threats and offers.
According to the text of the Pakistani cable, which was created from the meeting by the Pakistani ambassador and transmitted to Pakistan, the US State Department encouraged the Pakistani government to remove Khan as prime minister due to his independent foreign policy towards Russia.
According to The Intercept, the classified cable, internally referred to as a “cypher,” discloses the State Department’s use of both incentives and sticks in its campaign against Khan, promising improved relations if Khan was ousted and isolation if he was not.
Asad Majeed Khan, who was then Pakistan’s ambassador to the US, and State Department officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu, are described in the “Secret” paper, it was stated.
Strong “encouragement” was given by the State Department to Pakistan’s ruling elite to take action in order to depose Khan.
Concerns over Khan’s alleged disagreement with the US and NATO’s proxy war in Russia and Ukraine were the main drivers behind this encouragement.
Since Khan opposed the proxy war, efforts were undertaken to kill him.
According to The Intercept, an unidentified source in the Pakistani military gave them access to the paper and said they were unrelated to Khan or his party.
According to the report, US officials threatened Pakistan with isolation if Khan retained his position and declared that “all will be forgiven” if he were to step down.
According to the report, the encouragement was given in March 2022 during a meeting between the Pakistani ambassador to the United States and two State Department representatives.
One month after the meeting, a no-confidence vote was held in the Pakistani parliament which led to Khan’s removal from power.
Before the vote, Lu reportedly said to Ambassador Majeed, “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.” Otherwise, I think it will be difficult moving forward,” he concluded.
Khan said that a “foreign power” clearly referring to the United States was supporting a “conspiracy” to overthrow his democratically elected government just days before it was overthrown on April 9, 2022.
Speaking to a sizable crowd in the nation’s capital, Islamabad, Khan claimed that a “foreign power” had donated millions of cash to opposition parties to start a no-confidence motion against him.
“The move to oust me is (a) blatant interference in domestic politics by the United States,” Khan added during his next rally.
The meeting was where Lu reportedly brought up Washington’s concern with Pakistan’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict.
According to Lu, who is quoted in the document, “many here and in Europe are pretty concerned about why Pakistan is taking such an aggressively neutral position (on Ukraine), if such a position is even feasible. To us, that doesn’t appear like a neutral stance.
After having private conversations with the US National Security Council, Lu continued, “It seems quite clear that this is the Prime Minister’s policy.”
Khan was ousted from office in a no-confidence vote that many believe was orchestrated with the support of Pakistan’s potent military.
The military-backed government has filed around 200 legal lawsuits against Khan since he was removed from office.
The former prime minister has insisted that the accusations against him are being made for political reasons in order to keep him out of office. He claims that these incidents are the work of the nation’s potent military.
After Khan was given a three-year prison sentence and a five-year political ban by a district court, Pakistan was plunged into chaos.
Khan was detained over the weekend and sentenced to prison.
