Prime Minister Imran Khan admitted that Pakistan committed “one of the biggest blunders” by joining the United States after the 9/11 attacks, saying the previous governments “should not have pledged what they could not deliver.”
Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations think-tank in New York, Khan also said the least he expects the international community to do is to urge India to lift the curfew in Kashmir.
Responding to a question, Khan said he had urged his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi to “reset” bilateral ties and his government waited to resume talks until after the elections in India were over but then it found that “India is pushing us in the blacklist of the Financial Action Task Force to bankrupt us.”
He said that by abrogating Article 370, India had cast aside the United Nations Security Council resolutions, the Simla accord and its own Constitution.
Khan said he would ask the UN to play its role on the Kashmir issue.
Pakistan has been trying to internationalise the Kashmir issue but India has asserted that the abrogation of Article 370 was its “internal matter”. New Delhi has also asked Islamabad to accept the reality and stop its anti-India rhetoric.
When asked about former US defence secretary James Mattis’ remark that he considered Pakistan to be “the most dangerous” among all countries he had dealt with, Khan said: “I do not think Mattis fully understands why Pakistan became radicalised.”
Khan said Pakistan “committed one of the biggest blunders” when it joined the US war on terror after the 9/11 terror attacks by the al-Qaeda.
“I think the Pakistani government should not have pledged what they could not deliver,” Khan said, referring to the then military dictator General Pervez Musharraf’s decision to side with the US.
Pakistan was one of the three countries which recognised the Taliban government in Afghanistan before the US invasion in 2001 there.
After the US invasion of Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks, Pakistan extended support to American forces against the Taliban.
