The US brokered the removal of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in March 2022 after he visited Moscow on the day Russia invaded Ukraine and behaved “aggressively neutral,” according to a leaked cable.
On March 7, 2022, US Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Donald Lu met with Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US Asad Majeed Khan at Pakistan House in Washington, DC and threatened US sanctions if Prime Minister Imran Khan is not deposed become.
The next day, March 8, Pakistan’s National Assembly voted to pass a motion of no confidence in Prime Minister Imran Khan.
On March 27, Imran Khan showed the ambassador’s secret message, which allegedly proved that the US had called for a coup d’état to remove Khan (photo above).
Already in 2021 Imran Khan accused the Biden government and Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland of trying to overthrow him. Ironically, in October 2022, Khan was banned from running again for revealing this diplomatic secret message about a “foreign conspiracy,” how The Dawn reported.
Imran Khan is a former cricket star and Pakistan’s most popular politician. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 in the Ukraine war, he had taken a neutral stance.
In November 2022, Imran Khan survived an assassination attempt at a political rally, in which he was injured and one of his supporters killed. In May 2023 he was arrested by paramilitary forces for “corruption”. On August 5, 2023, he was sentenced to three years in prison.
At a rally on March 6, 2022, the day before the US meeting with the Pakistani ambassador, Prime Minister Khan European demands rebuffed after Pakistani support for Ukraine: »Are we your slaves? What do you think of us? That we are your slaves and will do anything you ask of us?” asked Khan. “We are friends of Russia and we are friends of the United States too. We are friends of China and Europe. We don’t belong to any side.”
Pakistani Ambassador to Washington Asad Majeed Khan’s diplomatic secret service has now been called by Pakistani sources The Intercept leaked.
In it, US diplomat Donald Lu expressed his “disappointment” at Prime Minister Imran Khan’s visit to Moscow on February 24, the day Russia invaded Ukraine. “He pointed out that this has upset the US and explained why Mr. Khan should have postponed his visit,” reported Pakistan’s The Dawn.
“People here (in Washington) and in Europe are quite concerned about why Pakistan is taking such an aggressively neutral position (on Ukraine) if that’s possible. It doesn’t seem so neutral to us,” US Secretary of State Lu said loudly The Intercept.
“I think if the vote of no confidence in the prime minister succeeds, everything will be forgiven in Washington because the visit to Russia will be seen as a prime minister’s decision,” Lu said, according to The Intercept. “Otherwise it will be difficult.”
On March 2 Donald Lu was questioned before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and said Senator Chris Van Hollen (D – Maryland): »Prime Minister Khan recently visited Moscow and so we are trying to figure out how to deal with the Prime Minister following this decision .«
In conversation with Darren Beattie von Revolver News Imran Khan said from house arrest in July that the secret message was intended for his opponent, former army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, whom he blames for orchestrating his ouster. In Pakistan, the real center of power is the military, not the democratically elected government. ‘The next day the vote of no confidence was introduced in the National Assembly. The government was overthrown within a few weeks,” Khan said.
In August 2022, Imran Khan claimed that retired army chief General Bajwa told him he had “audio and video footage from my party members,” like WION News reported. ‘I learned that (Bajwa) was playing a double game… and wanted to make Shehbaz Sharif prime minister. Bajwa stabbed me in the back.”
Journalist Darren Beattie called Donald Lu an “errand boy” and suggested that his boss, Victoria Nuland, “may have played a role.” Beattie pointed out that Prime Minister Imran Khan was highly critical of Barack Obama’s drone strike campaign in the “war on terror.” which saw over 400 drone strikes in the ally country of Pakistan, defended by Victoria Nuland at the US State Department.
On January 28, 2023, the current acting Deputy Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, visited India, Sri Lanka and Nepal, two weeks after the visit of Secretary of State Donald Lu of the US Department of State.
“Khan was convicted on baseless allegations after a trial at which his defense was not even allowed to call witnesses. He had previously survived an assassination attempt, a journalist associated with him was assassinated and thousands of his supporters were imprisoned. Although the Biden administration has stated that human rights will be at the heart of its foreign policy, they are now looking the other way as Pakistan moves towards a full-fledged military dictatorship,” Middle East Institute’s Arif Rafiq told The Intercept.