Imran’s cypher drama made Pakistan laughing stock, says Biden adviser

Talking to Saleem Safi in a Geo News programme “Jirga”, the US president’s adviser said that Imran Khan’s cypher drama made Pakistan a laughing stock in the world. He said that Pakistan is still a very important country for the US. It is not true that President Biden was ignoring Pakistan because of its relations with China.

Shahid Ahmed Khan, adviser to the US President on Arts, has said that America has nothing to do with internal Pakistan's internal politics and that the US senators wrote a general letter regarding human rights and not for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan, according to The News International. The US president's adviser on a Geo News programme said that America has nothing to do with Pakistan's internal politics and that Imran Khan's cypher drama had turned Pakistan into a laughingstock around the globe. He said that Pakistan remains a crucial nation for the US. It is not true that Pakistan's relations with China caused President Biden to ignore them, The News International reported.

Shahid Ahmed Khan also said that if the letter of the American senators was so important, Pakistan would not have received the International Monetary Fund (IMF) assistance, according to The News International. The CPEC and Pakistan's problems are very important to America. If infrastructure is built in Pakistan, American companies will come to invest. If China builds infrastructure in Pakistan, the US will also benefit from it. The US has created a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) cell here to help Pakistan on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Shahid wondered why Pakistan spoils relations with the countries and institutions where its interests are connected, adding that the IMF was not happy with the local leadership of Pakistan. He said that the IMF was also upset that the agreement made in the previous government tenure was not implemented, The News International reported. A cypher is a secret document that ambassadors in another country send to their country, if they speak wrongly about a country or a person, they have the right to ask for reasons.

American diplomats did not even talk to the Pakistani government about this, he said. Shahid said that most of the Pakistanis living in the US are not interested in the politics there.

The Cypher controversy pertains to the allegations levelled by Imran Khan, who was ousted via a parliamentary vote in April last year. On March 27, 2022, Khan alleged that Washington orchestrated a plan to remove him from office and brandished the cypher at a public rally to back his claims. The US has time and again denied such allegations, terming them "categorically false", Geo News reported.

In his confession, Azam claimed that when he shared the cypher with Imran, the former premier was "euphoric" and termed the language as a "US blunder". "There can be no bigger betrayal than this," Asif said while referring to the confessional statement that purportedly validated the ruling coalition's claims that the PTI chief jeopardised the country's national security by using the classified document for political purposes.

"National security was compromised and the official secrets act was violated," Geo News quoted Asif as saying. Earlier on Thursday, Imran termed the revival of the cypher controversy "an attempt to disqualify him" from contesting elections by the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM)-led government.

Addressing his supporters via video link, the PTI chief accused Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Asif Ali Zardari, and others of hatching a plot to remove him from the political arena, Geo News reported. (ANI)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)