PTI objects US envoy’s air survey to sensitive areas of Pak-Afghan border
ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has criticized the government on Sunday for allowing the new US envoy, Donald Blome, to visit “sensitive” border regions near Afghanistan while claiming it was part of the same “conspiracy” that led to the fall of its administration earlier this year.
Imran Khan was forced to step down after losing a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in April, which he alleges was the result of an American conspiracy. However, the United States has repeatedly denied that.
Ambassador Blome went to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) on Wednesday where he highlighted his country’s economic and development assistance to the province in the last 75 years. He also visited the Torkham border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan during the same trip where he was briefed on how trade from the border was contributing to KP’s economic development.
“US envoy & his gang flying over sensitive areas of [Pakistan] on way to Torkham & surveying lay of land + official briefing & red carpet,” said Shireen Mazari, Khan’s aide and a senior PTI leader, in a Twitter post. “Areas ordinary Pak citizens [can’t] go [to]!”
She maintained the US envoy was “Viceroy in all but name” while adding that his visit to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border had helped fulfil “one more US regime change conspiracy agenda item.”
Mazari’s social media post drew criticism since the US envoy had also met the province’s chief minister, Mahmood Khan, who belongs to the PTI party.
The American diplomat handed over 36 vehicles to the provincial health department to help its rapid response teams collect COVID-19 samples and monitor cases.
He also gave an interview to a Pakistani newspaper, Dawn, saying his country was helping the KP administration improve health and educational facilities and ensure greater economic development.
Pictures shared by Mazari showed Blome in a helicopter en route to Torkham border and being briefed by security officials.
Later in the day, the former human rights minister responded to pictures being shared of the US envoy with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Minister Taimur Khan Jhagra at a function of the United States Agency for International Development on Thursday for the handover of 36 vehicles to the provincial government.
Mazari said those sharing the pictures did not realise that such government-to-government socioeconomic programmes were done through agreements and were the “norm”.
However, she reiterated that an envoy going to “sensitive areas” and being provided access was “a security issue”. “So is there a security agreement now in place with [the] US? We should know if there is,” Mazari questioned.
Imran Khan
Separately, PTI Chairman Imran Khan reiterated his claims of conspiracy, saying that Pakistan was facing fascism in the form of a “cabal of crooks and their handlers brought to power through US regime change conspiracy”.
“Will our people bow down before this conspiracy in fear or, as a nation, face up to the challenge?” he asked.
Imran has claimed that a US-backed regime change was the reason his government was ousted. He has called for sacking US Assistant Secretary of State for Central and South Asia Donald Lu, who he accuses of telling Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US, Asad Majeed, that a failure to remove the PTI government through a no-confidence vote would herald “consequences” for Pakistan.