Pakistan is a sovereign country with an independent foreign policy having a global importance because of its regional location, sharing borders with Afghanistan, Iran and India. Be it the Soviet-Afghan war or War on Terror there have been strong in-depth diplomatic relations between Pakistan and the USA. There have been frequent highs and lows in the relation between both the countries in all these years but each time it was dealt in a subtle way keeping all the diplomatic decorum in view..
Matters related to national security should be dealt with in a careful manner; media and public gatherings are not the right forums to reveal such documents. Prime Minister Khan tried to play the victim card on the cost of national security to gain public support and exert pressure on the joint opposition to reverse the vote of no-confidence. Moreover, the opposition refused to pull back the motion as they have gathered a strong position in Parliament and are confident to vote out the Prime Minister.
On 30 August 2021 American forces left Afghanistan permanently after having a long -stretched 20-year war. The withdrawal was a firm decision by President Joe Biden who believed that draining dollars in a prolonged war was not in the interest of the American people and their economy. The withdrawal was abrupt and raised major concerns on humanitarian grounds, due to which the Biden Administration received harsh criticism.
It seemed that Washington was no longer interested in engaging with Afghanistan as it laid off former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his democratically elected government, giving space to other entities in Afghanistan. Now, call it diplomatic failure or communication lapse, but in all this process President Biden did not bother to call Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan which miffed the latter and then he came up with a controversial term ‘Absolutely Not’.
Khan claimed that he declined the request of the USA to use Pakistani bases against Afghan soil. Immediately there was a rebuttal from the other side; Washington cleared their position by denying the allegation made by Khan and claimed to have never asked for any bases as they had already pulled their forces back and were not keen to further continue the war with Afghanistan. So, this was merely a political stunt by PM Imran to get public support and attention from POTUS who maintained an obvious distance from Khan since the day he took charge. The diplomatic gap between the two countries started widening and there was no substantial effort by Khan’s Foreign Office to fill the gap.
Now that the PM is facing a political crisis where the joint opposition has tabled a vote of no-confidence against him in Parliament and his own legislators have joined the other side, he ushered in another controversy by waving a letter at a public gathering in Islamabad claiming it was a threatening letter by a specific country. The contents of the letter and name of that country was not shared but it was obvious where the PM was hitting at. He also claimed that all this political turmoil that he is facing was an international conspiracy against him and his government because he wanted an independent foreign policy for Pakistan. He claimed that the powerful country got angry over his recent visit to Russia which is currently having a cold war with the western countries after the Russia-Ukraine war.
Later on PM shared and discussed the threat letter in the NSC (National Security Committee) meeting and decided to issue ‘strong démarche’ to that foreign country. Meanwhile, the opposition believed that this was just another political stunt and tactic by the PM to divert attention from the no-confidence motion which had already created a strong momentum.
In his address to the nation the PM further talked about the threatening letter and connected it with the no-confidence motion, he even mentioned the name of that country. The very next day White House spokesperson dismissed the allegation made by the PM by saying “There is absolutely no truth to that allegation”.
Now, the million-dollar question is what would be the possible repercussions of this diplomatic crisis created by the head of the government himself? Pakistan is already under strict IMF conditions and the debt ratio is rising every passing year and the country cannot afford further economic pressure. Here an important question arises: Should such sensitive diplomatic cables be discussed or shared publicly? Firstly, the Prime Minister should not have discussed this letter in public; secondly, he should not have linked this letter with the no-confidence motion.
Matters related to national security should be dealt with in a careful manner; media and public gatherings are not the right forums to reveal such documents. Prime Minister Khan tried to play the victim card on the cost of national security to gain public support and exert pressure on the joint opposition to reverse the vote of no-confidence. Moreover, the opposition refused to pull back the motion as they have gathered a strong position in Parliament and are confident to vote out the Prime Minister.
However, despite the ongoing political, diplomatic and economic turmoil Pakistan will shine and move forward towards progress and prosperity.
