ISLAMABAD, June 21 (APP): Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that the West is ignoring the atrocities in Kashmir with hundreds and thousands of Kashmiris been killed by the Indian troops.
“This is such a big issue in the western world as why are the people of Kashmir ignored,” the prime minister said in an interview with Jonathan Swan of Axios on HBO aired on Monday.
The prime minister said the Kashmir issue was “much more relevant” where 800,000 Indian troops had literally put the nine million Kashmiris under jail.
“Why is this not an issue? This is hypocracy,” he said, referring to the apathy of the West towards the plight of Kashmiri people facing the humanitarian crisis for decades.
On Islamophobia, the prime minister termed a “big communication gap” between the Islamic world and the western societies as the main reason.
He said after 9/11, the term ‘Islamic terrorism’ was coined that misguided people in the West who started believing that Islam led to terrorism.
He pointed that with involvement of a few Muslims in terrorist activities, the entire 1.3 billion Muslim community became the target.
Asked about “doing vastly better than the United States” on COVID-19, the prime minister said partial lockdown coupled with comprehensive data analysis helped his government keep the pandemic in control.
Smart lockdown was the “best decision” to cope with the situation, he added.
"Partial lockdown coupled with comprehensive data analysis helped us keep pandemic in control,"
Prime Minister @ImranKhanPTI answers @JonathanVSwan's query of how "Pakistan has done objectively, vastly better than the United States with Covid"#AxiosOnHBO#AbsolutelyNot pic.twitter.com/tJRLvvufgM
— Prime Minister's Office, Pakistan (@PakPMO) June 20, 2021
Imran Khan recalled that with people in Spain and Italy ending up in hospitals as COVID-19 raged through Europe, there was a big temptation by the politicians from Opposition for a total lockdown. However, he said, he opted for smart lockdown given the problems of poor.
He mentioned that an effective working of the Command and Control Centre with daily data monitoring and input by provinces, army, doctors and health specialists helped the government handle the situation.
About the successful lockdown policy of the government, the prime minister said that clamping down a complete lockdown would have impacted the economy. “Pakistan had already dire economic situation,” but the government’s smart lockdown policy saved the economy, he added.
“A balanced approach actually saved us and Pakistan managed to save its economy and people’s lives,” he added.
The prime minister said in India, prime minister Modi imposed complete curfew which worsened the situation there compounding miseries of the poor people.
To a question, the prime minister said his foremost priorities were; alleviation of poverty, making the country a welfare state, and to bring the powerful under the rule of law.
Prime minister Khan said in his opinion, rule of law, was very important as a country would remain poor if did not have rule of law.
He referred to a fact-finding report under the office of UN secretary general which had identified a flight of capital from the developing countries worth 1 trillion dollars every year to the western capitals.
He said it was happening because lack of rule of law in the poor and developing countries, adding two families in Pakistan had ruled for decades and took billions of dollars outside the country.
The prime minister opined that such corrupt practices impacted the currency, devaluing it and thus increased poverty.
Prime Minister Imran Khan categorically said that Pakistan would “absolutely not” allow any bases and use of its territory for any sort of action inside Afghanistan.
“Absolutely Not. There is no way we are going to allow any bases, any sort of action from Pakistani territory into Afghanistan. Absolutely not,” he said, in an earlier excerpt of the interview shared at HBO website.
The prime minister gave the response as the interviewer asked him if he would allow the American government to have CIA conduct counter-terrorism missions in Pakistan against Al-Qaeda ISIS or the Taliban.
Recently, in his address at Senate, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi ruled out the possibility of providing its military bases to the United States for counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan.
He rejected as unfounded the reports to this effect and made it clear that the government would never provide military bases to the US, nor would allow drone attacks inside Pakistan.
Information Minister Chaudhry Fawad Hussain in a cabinet press briefing had also ruled out the possibility of any airbase of the United States in Pakistan saying as all such facilities were under Pakistan’s own use.
He made it clear that it was the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-led government which ended ‘drone surveillance’ facility given to the US in the past.
“All the airbases are under the use of Pakistan. Right now, no negotiations in this regard are underway as Pakistan cannot give any airbase [to any country],” he said.