Imran Khan News: Pakistan PM Imran Khan feels US has ‘decided on India for strategic partner’ | World News
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan told foreign journalists late Wednesday night that he believed the US had picked India to partner with in the subcontinent.
“I think the Americans have decided that India is a strategic partner. Maybe that’s why Pakistan is being treated differently. Pakistan is just considered to be useful only in the context of settling this mess (Afghanistan),” Khan was quoted by Dawn (online) as saying at an interaction with foreign media at his home here.
“The hasty way in which the Americans left, if they wanted a political settlement then common sense dictates that (you negotiate) from a position of strength,” he was quoted as saying, adding that the US was now blaming Pakistan when they no longer had any leverage. He said that another reason for the US’s shifting position was his country’s close relationship with China.
“A nightmare scenario for Pakistan would be a protracted civil war in case the Taliban tried to form an exclusive Afghan government through a military takeover,” he told the journalists, according to Dawn, explaining that the Taliban were a Pashtun-majority group and hence there would be spillover effects in Pakistan’s Pashtun-majority areas. “So there is a likelihood that we will again have problems in our Pakhtun areas,” the PM said, adding that close to three million people had been internally displaced from Pakistan’s tribal areas due to war in Afghanistan.
“We have a larger Pakhtun population here in Pakistan than in Afghanistan, and they’re probably the most xenophobic people on Earth. They fight each other normally, but when it’s an outside force, they all get together,” he said.
Any civil war in Afghanistan, Khan said, would also derail Pakistan’s plans for connectivity with Central Asia and its g eo-economic agenda.”Hence it’s in Pakistan’s interest that there is a political settlement in Afghanistan and all factions come together to form a government that represents everyone,” he added.
He also contradicted what his national security adviser had claimed in a recent interview to the “Financial Times”, saying, “I am not waiting for a call from US President Joe Biden.”
The subject has been discussed and written about in the country for the last few days and the PM’s statement on Thursday has once again confounded many who wonder why Khan needed to say what he has said. “I keep hearing that President Biden hasn’t called me. It’s his business. It’s not like I am waiting for any phone call,” Imran said in response to a question from a journalist.
Khan’s supporters and opponents had a field day discussing the subject on social media. Memes were made and comments were shared on Twitter showing the PM waiting for a call that he now says he is not interested in receiving. A leading satirist and columnist for Dawn newspaper, Nadeem Farooq Paracha, posted a picture showing President Biden on the phone saying he was only ordering a pizza in response to being asked whether he was calling the Pakistan PM.
“I think the Americans have decided that India is a strategic partner. Maybe that’s why Pakistan is being treated differently. Pakistan is just considered to be useful only in the context of settling this mess (Afghanistan),” Khan was quoted by Dawn (online) as saying at an interaction with foreign media at his home here.
“The hasty way in which the Americans left, if they wanted a political settlement then common sense dictates that (you negotiate) from a position of strength,” he was quoted as saying, adding that the US was now blaming Pakistan when they no longer had any leverage. He said that another reason for the US’s shifting position was his country’s close relationship with China.
“A nightmare scenario for Pakistan would be a protracted civil war in case the Taliban tried to form an exclusive Afghan government through a military takeover,” he told the journalists, according to Dawn, explaining that the Taliban were a Pashtun-majority group and hence there would be spillover effects in Pakistan’s Pashtun-majority areas. “So there is a likelihood that we will again have problems in our Pakhtun areas,” the PM said, adding that close to three million people had been internally displaced from Pakistan’s tribal areas due to war in Afghanistan.
“We have a larger Pakhtun population here in Pakistan than in Afghanistan, and they’re probably the most xenophobic people on Earth. They fight each other normally, but when it’s an outside force, they all get together,” he said.
Any civil war in Afghanistan, Khan said, would also derail Pakistan’s plans for connectivity with Central Asia and its g eo-economic agenda.”Hence it’s in Pakistan’s interest that there is a political settlement in Afghanistan and all factions come together to form a government that represents everyone,” he added.
He also contradicted what his national security adviser had claimed in a recent interview to the “Financial Times”, saying, “I am not waiting for a call from US President Joe Biden.”
The subject has been discussed and written about in the country for the last few days and the PM’s statement on Thursday has once again confounded many who wonder why Khan needed to say what he has said. “I keep hearing that President Biden hasn’t called me. It’s his business. It’s not like I am waiting for any phone call,” Imran said in response to a question from a journalist.
Khan’s supporters and opponents had a field day discussing the subject on social media. Memes were made and comments were shared on Twitter showing the PM waiting for a call that he now says he is not interested in receiving. A leading satirist and columnist for Dawn newspaper, Nadeem Farooq Paracha, posted a picture showing President Biden on the phone saying he was only ordering a pizza in response to being asked whether he was calling the Pakistan PM.