In a meeting on March 7, 2022, the US State Department urged the Pakistani government to depose Imran Khan as prime minister due to his impartiality in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
The meeting between Pakistan’s ambassador to the US and two US State Department officials, according to the US-based news outlet The Intercept, has been the subject of intense scrutiny, controversy, and rumour in Pakistan over the past 18 months as former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan and his military and civilian rivals fought for control.
The political conflict intensified on August 5 when Imran Khan received a three-year prison term for corruption-related offences, according to a report from The Intercept.
Imran Khan’s followers, though, have refuted the accusations and called them unfounded. Imran Khan is not permitted to run in the Pakistan elections that are anticipated for later this year, according to the court’s order.
A no-confidence vote was held in Parliament, which resulted to Khan’s removal from office, one month after the meeting with US representatives was made public in a document from the Pakistani government. The Pakistani army was thought to have supported the motion in the parliament.
The strong military of Pakistan is thought to have supported the vote’s organisation. Since his resignation from office, Khan and his supporters have fought against the army and its civilian partners, whose fall from power the former Pakistani prime minister facilitated at the US’s request.
Imran Khan, Pakistan’s former prime minister, brought up the “foreign conspiracy” allegation in March of last year. Imran Khan said a foreign force delivered a message that he needed “to be removed” or Pakistan will suffer the repercussions. He was speaking to the country as his coalition government appeared to be losing the majority after losing the support of several partners.
Khan had waved the “letter” at a public rally on March 27 and claimed there was an international plot to have him removed. He had attempted to connect the opposition’s vote of no confidence with a “foreign-funded” effort to overthrow his administration.
The wording of the “cypher” Pakistani cable, which was created from the meeting by the ambassador and sent to Pakistan, has revealed the strategies utilised by the US State Department to push back against Khan, pledging to open up relations with Islamabad if Khan was ousted and isolation if he was not.
The ‘Secret’ paper contains a description of the meeting between Asad Majeed Khan, then-ambassador of Pakistan to the US, and Donald Lu, assistant secretary of state for the bureau of south and central asian affairs. The document was allegedly released by an unnamed source in the Pakistani military.
The cable details the incentives and penalties the US State Department used to pressure Imran Khan, the then-prime minister of Pakistan. According to a report from The Intercept, the characteristics of the US-Pakistani relationship outlined in the cable were confirmed by future events. In the cable, the US expresses disapproval of Imran Khan’s foreign policy in relation to the situation in Russia and Ukraine. Imran Khan’s position on Ukraine was swiftly changed when he was removed from office.
Two weeks after the commencement of the crisis between Russia and Ukraine, as Khan was travelling to Moscow, US State Department representatives and the Pakistani government held a diplomatic meeting. Imran Khan, the leader of Pakistan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), visited Russia, which infuriated the US.
Lu had been questioned about Pakistan’s and other countries’ neutral posture on the Ukraine issue on March 2, 2022, just days before the meeting, in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
A day before the meeting, Khan, addressing a rally, said, “Are we your slaves? What do you think of us? That we are your slaves and that we will do whatever you ask of us?”
“We are friends of Russia, and we are also friends of the United States. We are friends of China and Europe. We are not part of any alliance,” the then Pakistan PM said in an apparent reference to the US-led West.
According to the document, Lu, in the meeting, expressed US’ displeasure over Pakistan’s position on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Lu said, “people here and in Europe are quite concerned about why Pakistan is taking such an aggressively neutral position (on Ukraine), if such a position is even possible. It does not seem such a neutral stand to us”, The Intercept quoted Lu as saying in the document.
Lu further said that he had held internal discussions with the US National Security Council and it “seems quite clear that this is the Prime Minister’s policy”.
On the issue of the no-confidence vote, The Intercept quoted Donald Lu as saying, “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.”
He added, “I think it will be tough going ahead.”
Lu had warned that Pakistan would be marginalised by its Western allies if the situation was not resolved. He had said, “I cannot tell how this will be seen by Europe but I suspect their reaction will be similar,” adding that Khan could face “isolation” by Europe and the US should he remain in office.
Asked about Lu’s quotes in the Pakistani cable, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said, “Nothing in these purported comments shows the United States taking a position on who the leader of Pakistan should be.”
Miller, however, said he would not react to private diplomatic discussions.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani ambassador voiced frustration with the lack of engagement from US leadership. He said, “This reluctance had created a perception in Pakistan that we were being ignored or even taken for granted. There was also a feeling that while the US expected Pakistan’s support on all issues that were important to the US, it did not reciprocate.”
According to the document, the discussion concluded with the Pakistani ambassador expressing hope that the Russia-Ukraine conflict would not affect the bilateral ties between Islamabad and Washington. Lu had said the damage was real but not fatal and with Imran Khan gone, the ties could return to normal, The Intercept reported.
Lu said, “I would argue that it has already created a dent in the relationship from our perspective.” He further said, “Let us wait for a few days to see whether the political situation changes, which would mean that we would not have a big disagreement about this issue and the dent would go away very quickly. Otherwise, we will have to confront this issue head on and decide how to manage it.”
On March 8, 2022, a day after the meeting, Imran Khan’s opponents in Parliament moved forward with procedural steps towards the no-confidence vote. The US State Department has previously and on repeated occasions denied that Lu urged the Pakistani government to remove Khan as Prime Minister.
On April 8, 2022, US State Department spokesperson Jalina Porter, responding to the allegations levelled by Imran Khan, said, “Let me just say very bluntly there is absolutely no truth to these allegations”, The Intercept reported.
A month after the meeting was described in the cable and just days prior to Khan’s ouster from power, Pakistan’s then-army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa termed the Russian-Ukraine conflict a “huge tragedy” and criticised Moscow.
His remarks backed the public picture with Lu’s private observation, described in the cable, that Pakistan’s neutrality over the Russia-Ukraine conflict was the policy of Khan and not of the military.
