US State Department spokesman Ned Price has said the United States agreed with the statement given by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General (DG) a day ago wherein he dismissed an impression of a foreign “conspiracy” to oust former prime minister Imran Khan’s government.<\/p>\n
The senior US official made this statement during a press briefing in response to a question from a journalist.<\/p>\n
“Pakistan\u2019s military spokesperson said they had no evidence to suggest that the United States had threatened or was involved in the conspiracy to seek the ouster of Imran Khan\u2019s government. What are your comments on it?” the journalist had asked.<\/p>\n
“We would agree with it,” Price said.<\/p>\n
Also read: Military refutes Imran\u2019s foreign plot narrative<\/p>\n
Military spokesman Maj Gen Babar Iftikhar had on Thursday tried to clear the air about the alleged foreign conspiracy behind Imran’s ouster and specifically mentioned that the National Security Committee (NSC) \u2013 which includes the army and ISI chiefs \u2013 did not use the word \u201cconspiracy\u201d in its statement on the “cablegate” unlike some political pronouncement by the PTI leaders.<\/p>\n
Gen Iftikhar said the military\u2019s stance on the cable was formulated after a thorough investigation by an intelligence agency.<\/p>\n
The NSC, however, had noted that the message conveyed by a State Department official was tantamount to \u201cblatant interference in the internal affairs of Pakistan\u201d.<\/p>\n
At a press briefing on Thursday, Price dismissed the accusations leveled by Imran, saying “there is no truth whatsoever to the allegations that have been put forward.”<\/p>\n
“We support the peaceful upholding of constitutional and democratic principles, including respect for human rights. We do not support, whether it\u2019s in Pakistan or anywhere else around the world, one political party over another,” he told the briefing.<\/p>\n
The State Department official said the US supported broader principles, including the rule of law and equal justice under the law.<\/p>\n
He also underlined that the United States looked forward to working with newly elected Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his government “to promote peace and prosperity in Pakistan and the broader region”.<\/p>\n
Price said the relationship between the United States and Pakistan had been a vital one for the last 75 years. “You probably saw a statement that we released from the Secretary last night regarding the selection of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif,” he added.<\/p>\n
A day ago, US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken had also congratulated Shehbaz Sharif and vowed to continue its long-standing cooperation with Pakistan’s government.<\/p>\n
Likewise, earlier this week, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby had insisted that the US had a “healthy military-to-military relationship with Pakistani armed forces”, hoping that “we have every expectation that will be able to continue to be the case”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US State Department spokesman Ned Price has said the United States agreed with the statement given by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General (DG) a day ago wherein he dismissed an impression of a foreign “conspiracy” to oust former prime minister Imran Khan’s government. The senior US official made this statement during a press […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255143,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-255141","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-news"},"yoast_head":"\n