Pakistan Minister Warns
Pakistan’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar warned the country against abandoning its strategic cooperation with China in order to retain a cordial relationship with the US, according to ARY News.
According to the report,
Khar claimed in March that her nation can “no longer try to maintain a middle ground between China and the United States.”
The highly classified conclusions of US intelligence revealed Pakistan’s policymakers’ own judgment of how to deal with the challenge of the intensifying conflict between the US and China.
The US was able to obtain access to Khar’s top-secret memo through leaked materials.
The leaked intelligence findings provide new insights into President Biden’s concerns as he seeks global backing for his attempts to combat autocracy, restrict Russia’s belligerence, and resist China’s rising global influence.
According to ARY News, in an internal memo titled “Pakistan’s Difficult Choices,” Khar warned that Islamabad should avoid giving the appearance of appeasing the West and that the instinct to preserve Pakistan’s partnership with the US would ultimately sacrifice the full benefits of the country’s “real strategic” partnership with China.
Meanwhile, another document, dated February 17, describes Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s discussions with a subordinate about an upcoming UN vote on the Ukraine conflict, and how the government expected renewed Western pressure to support a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion.
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According to the intelligence document,
The assistant warned the prime minister that backing the bill would reflect a shift in Pakistan’s posture following its previous abstention on a similar resolution.
According to the source, Pakistan has the potential to negotiate economic and energy arrangements with Russia, and supporting the Western-backed resolution might imperil those relationships. According to ARY News, Pakistan was one of 32 countries that abstained when the UN General Assembly voted on February 23.
