US welcomes Pak NSC’s rejection of Imran Khan’s ‘foreign conspiracy’ claims

Washington/Islamabad, Apr 23 (PTI) Asserting that a strong, prosperous and democratic Pakistan is critical to its interests, the US has welcomed Pakistan’s top security forum’s statement rejecting Imran Khan’s repeated claims of America plotting a conspiracy for regime change in Islamabad with the help of the Opposition parties.

Khan was removed as the prime minister earlier this month through a no-confidence vote moved by the Opposition in the National Assembly, becoming the first Pakistani premier to be ousted by Parliament in the coup-prone country. In a statement released after its meeting chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Pakistan’s National Security Committee (NSC) on Friday said it discussed the telegram received from the Pakistan embassy in Washington last month which was used by Khan to portray his removal through no-confidence vote as a US conspiracy for following an independent foreign policy.

The NSC concluded that based on the input of security agencies as well as the former Pakistan ambassador to the US, no evidence of a “foreign conspiracy” had been found. Replying to a question on the NSC’s conclusion, US State Department Deputy Spokesperson Jalina Porter in a press briefing on Friday said, “As we have continued to say all along, there’s absolutely no truth to those rumours, so we welcome this statement.” “And I would also like to underscore that the United States values our longstanding cooperation with Pakistan and has always viewed a strong, prosperous, and democratic Pakistan as critical to US interests,” she added.

The alleged cable first surfaced when Khan pulled out a document from the inner pocket of his waistcoat and waved it to his audience at a public rally in Islamabad on March 27 to assert that he was being a victim of international conspiracy. Later, he made specific allegations that US assistant secretary for Central and South Asia, Donald Lu, threatened during a meeting with the Pakistan ambassador in Washington to remove Khan from power for not cooperating on the issue of Ukraine. The US has rebuffed the allegations multiple times.

Khan has also dubbed the Shehbaz Sharif government, which replaced him, as “imported” and vowed to fight it.

Earlier this month, Pakistan’s powerful Army had also contradicted Khan’s remarks accusing America of hatching a conspiracy to topple his government, saying there was no evidence of interference in the country’s internal matters. PTI SCY AKJ SCY