Prime Minister Imran Khan has said Pakistan expects from the United States an even-handed treatment with respect to India, especially on the Kashmir dispute.
In a wide-ranging interview with German magazine Der Spiegel, he said the South Asian region is a hot-spot and it could flare up at any time.
The prime minister felt the US thinks that India will contain China, “which is a completely flawed premise”.
He said India is a threat to its neighbours, including China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
About Afghanistan, the prime minister said from day one, his government has been fostering dialogue to resume peace in that country.
He said Pakistan has no favourites in Afghanistan and Islamabad’s only interest was that the future government in Kabul does not allow India to operate from there against Pakistan.
The premier said Pakistan had nothing to do with the terror attacks on 9/11.
“Al Qaeda was in Afghanistan. After 9/11, we should not have allowed our army to become involved in the war. I opposed it from day one. The US put pressure on us, and the military dictator General Pervez Musharraf succumbed to that pressure,” he recalled.
When it was pointed out that, at the time, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were the only countries supporting the Taliban, he replied: “Don’t forget, Osama bin Laden was (considered) a ‘hero’ in the 1980s. He supported the Mujahideen against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and he was backed by both the CIA and Pakistan.
“It was Pakistan’s right to recognise the Taliban but Pakistan had no control over the Taliban. When Pakistan asked the Taliban to hand over Bin Laden to the Americans, they refused.”
Asked how Pakistan was able to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table, the premier said the country had leverage due to 2.7 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
However, he cautioned that no-one could predict the way things will go in Afghanistan. “What I can say is that after Afghanistan, the country that wants peace the most is Pakistan.
“We have lost 70,000 people in this conflict, and our tribal areas adjacent to the Afghan border have been devastated during the last 15 years. Half of the people in these areas have become internally displaced.”
The premier also regretted the “double image” given to Pakistan. “It all started in the 1980s, after the Iranian revolution. Many in the West began looking at Muslim countries as if there was a divide between liberals and fundamentalists — a very artificial assessment.
“Muslim countries are no different from other communities. All communities are divided into moderates, which make up the majority, and the extremists.”
On the UAE, Bahrain and Sudan having established relations with Israel, Khan said every country had its own foreign policy but Pakistan could not recognise Israel unless there was a just settlement of the Palestinian issue.
Speaking about the US presidential elections, Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that while Joe Biden is leading the opinion polls, Donald Trump is very unpredictable, ‘because he is not like normal politicians’.
The PM said both he and the US president were ‘unorthodox’ and ‘did a lot of out-of-the-box’ thinking to win the elections.
The prime minister then recalled his long political struggle in the country and how he treaded his way to the office of the prime minister.
Khan said being a politician in Pakistan who formed his own party the biggest in over 22 years, he also had to do a lot of out-of-the-box-thinking including relying on social media and then attracting the youth to rallies.
“We had to be very unorthodox, and in some ways, Donald Trump does too.”
Asked with whom he would prefer to work with, Khan said, “What we really want from the US is an even-handed treatment with respect to India, especially with the dispute in Kashmir.”
Asked if the new law prohibiting criticism of the Pakistan Army will end freedom of speech in the country, he said “Pakistan has more freedom of speech than almost any Western country”.
“Every day, our security forces lose people in battle. Every country protects its institutions, not when they do something wrong, but when they’re being attacked,” the PM said.
“I use the word freedom very carefully after having spent almost two decades of my life in England where they have very strong laws on slander. There was a defamation case between me and an English cricket star (Ian Botham) that I won, because defamation laws are very strong there. But such slander laws don’t exist in Pakistan.
“I have been wrongly slandered as prime minister here and gone to court but even as prime minister, I haven’t been able to get justice.”
Dilating on the nation’s relatively low number of coronavirus cases and deaths, the premier said ‘smart lockdowns’ were the key to curbing the spread of the virus.
“Almost half of the population survives on daily and weekly wages. Therefore, we imposed a ‘smart lockdown’ [and] only restricted areas where we discovered an outbreak. We didn’t stop supply lines.
“We didn’t stop the agriculture sector and quickly reopened the construction sector because that’s what employs the most people in urban areas. That saved us,” he said. He added that India, on the other hand, restricted people to their homes in poor areas. “They have a lot of poverty now.”
In conclusion, Khan, who remains wildly popularly as a celebrity even removed from his office as prime minister, spoke lovingly of his shy wife Bushra Bibi when asked if he shared much of his high profile public life with her.
“Only a fool doesn’t talk about everything with his wife. She has great wisdom. I discuss everything with her,” he said. “She is my soulmate. She is my companion. I would not have survived without her.”
CANDID: u201cWe had to be very unorthodox, and in some ways, Donald Trump does too,u201d Prime Minister Imran Khan said of his path to power in an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel.
