India hell-bent on bankrupting Pakistan: Imran

By News Desk

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan, while completely ruling out any prospects for resumption of dialogue with the fascist Modi-led government, said India was trying to bankrupt Pakistan and push it into the blacklist of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

The Prime Minister, in an exclusive interview with Al-Jazeera, said his government tried to start dialogue with its nuclear-armed neighbour and sort out all differences, including the core Kashmir issue through a political settlement, but they pulled back after realising that Modi-led government had an agenda to push Pakistan into a disaster. “We discovered that while we were trying to have dialogue, they were trying to push us in the blacklist in FATF ... If Pakistan is pushed into the blacklist of FATF that means there will be sanctions on Pakistan. So they were trying to bankrupt us economically, so that’s when we pulled back. And that’s when we realised that this government is on an agenda ... to push Pakistan to disaster.”

The Prime Minister said there was no question of talking to the Indian government after it revoked Article 370 of its constitution and annexed Kashmir illegally against the UNSC resolutions. “They not only unilaterally violated the international laws, but also its own laws,” he said, adding the UN resolutions called for plebiscite in the occupied Kashmir, so that Kashmiris could determine their own fate.

The Prime Minister said the two countries had similar problems, including climate change but Pakistan’s sincere urge for dialogue was misinterpreted. “The BJP extreme right wing, racist and fascist government was treating us as we were scared of them. They took our peace gesture as an appeasement,” he added. Khan said India was more or less conducting a genocide, a sort of racial attack against Muslims and minorities, never witnessed in history after Nazi’s Germany.

He said about eight million Muslims in occupied Kashmir had been under siege for almost six weeks now. The developments had made the region as flash point as India could do anything like it did after the Pulwama attack to divert world’s attention from its illegal annexation of occupied Kashmir and genocide of the Kashmiri Muslims, he added. He said India would try to blame Pakistan and could do what it had done last February, and Pakistan had fears that such incident could happen again.

Clarifying a question, the Prime Minister maintained there should be no confusion over his statement that Pakistan would never start a war. “I’m pacifist and antiwar. I am clear about it,” he said, cautioning that if two nuclear armed countries fought a conventional war, there was every possibility that it could end up into a nuclear conflict, which was unthinkable.

In that case, such a conflict would have far reaching consequences going beyond the Indian sub-continent, he added. If the international community failed to resolve Kashmir issue, it would have impacts upon the entire world and the entire world markets, he emphasised.

The Prime Minister said they would approach all the international fora to highlight the plight of Kashmiri people and the illegal and unilateral steps taken by India. The world must act now as the situation would have the potential to snowball into a disaster spilling beyond the Indian sub-continent, he reiterated.

Khan said they would be urging the world powers like the US, Russia and the European countries, to play their role in resolving the issue, and mentioned that China had been very supportive to Pakistan.

About US President Donald Trump’s offer to mediate between Pakistan and India, he said Pakistan was really thankful to him for his offer, elaborating that when the US president seriously intervened in an issue, there would be some sort of resolution. Secondly, if the US did not directly intervene, it had a role in the United Nations and the Security Council to exercise, he added.

India was stone-walling this suggestion because, it knew that once the international community was involved, it would insist upon implementing the exercise of right to self determination by the Kashmiri people, he added.

The Prime Minister, to a question, replied that during his upcoming UN General Assembly session, he would focus on the Kashmir situation.