Will ‘neutrals’ not suffer if economy worsens, asks Imran

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman and former Prime Minister Imran Khan Friday asked whether those having power and calling themselves neutrals would not suffer if the country’s economy deteriorated.

Addressing a webinar under the aegis of Islamabad Policy Institute, he said, “I ask those, who have power and now say they have stepped back and are neutral, whether Pakistan does not belong to them? And, if the country’s economy goes down, will it not be their loss as well?”

The PTI chairman maintained that people, who would live and die in Pakistan, should worry about the country and wondered what interests the people had in Pakistan, who were imposed on the nation through a US-backed regime change conspiracy.

On the ouster of his government, Imran Khan maintained that the US regime change plan could not have succeeded if local ‘traitors’ had not helped them. He asked who was responsible for the price the people of Pakistan were paying in the shape of a deteriorating economy, inflation and crippling loadshedding? “We have also been in the IMF programme for two and a half years, but there was no such inflation, loadshedding, while the economy was growing and it had been reflected in the Economic Survey,” PTI chairman emphasized and noted all indicators were positive and a record number of dollars were making their way to Pakistan. He explained that for the first time his government had come up with a national security policy, which had two components: national security and economic security.

“Economic security is as important as national security, as it was because of the economy and not the military that former USSR had disintegrated. The US, which has imposed corrupt people on us, could not even appreciate us for our role in its war on terror while we remained ready to be used as tissue paper,” he regretted.He said that the United States had engineered the regime change in Pakistan. “The US wanted Pakistan to toe its line on Russia and give it military bases again,” he added.

“They have their own problems with Russia, and we are paying the cost,” he said, referring to the Russia-Ukraine war and pointed out that India had been allowed to buy relatively cheaper Russian oil but Pakistan could not. The regime change, he noted, undermined the country’s sovereignty and that the ‘co-conspirators’ in the project benefited by saving themselves from accountability through NRO-II, but it was Pakistan that had suffered and the next generation would continue to bear the brunt.

“The rule of law was thrown into the bin by the amendment to the accountability law that wiped off corruption cases to the tune of Rs 1100 billion against the rulers,” he charged.Former National Security Adviser Lt-Gen (Retd) Naeem Lodhi backed the demand for a judicial inquiry into the allegations of regime change, saying there were clear indicators that a conspiracy had been hatched to change the government.Former Defence Secretary Lt-Gen (retd) Asif Yasin Malik said there could be no neutrality on the country’s interest.