Pakistan's military Thursday dismissed allegations by ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan that the United States had conspired with his political opponents to force him from office but said the U.S. had used language that amounted to interference in Pakistani affairs.
Major General Babar Iftikhar, the military spokesman, also attempted in a televised news conference to distance his powerful institution from having anything to do with the no-confidence vote in parliament that ended Khan's almost four years in power on Sunday.
The 69-year-old former cricket star has relentlessly alleged, before and after losing the vote, that "a foreign conspiracy of regime change" was behind his ouster to punish him for paying an official visit to Russia against Washington's advice. Khan visited President Vladimir Putin on February 24, the day Russian forces invaded Ukraine.
Khan's allegations are based on a March 7 ciphered communication sent to Islamabad by the then-Pakistani ambassador to Washington, Asad Majeed Khan, after a meeting with Donald Lu, assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs.
The ousted prime minister said the message contained details of an alleged U.S. plot and that its authenticity had been affirmed at a meeting of Pakistan's National Security Committee (NSC), comprising top civilian and military leaders, that he chaired on March 31.
A statement issued after the NSC meeting expressed “grave concern" at the communication from Washington and concluded that it “amounted to blatant interference in the internal affairs of Pakistan.”
Islamabad summoned the acting U.S. ambassador to the Foreign Ministry hours later that day and issued a demarche, or diplomatic note of protest, accusing the U.S. of interference in Pakistan's internal affairs.
Iftikhar defended the demarche as a "diplomatic procedure," but he challenged Khan's interpretation of the NSC statement.
"Is there any word such as conspiracy used in it? I don't think so," the general stressed. "However, it is clearly written in the statement that the language used [by the U.S. official] is akin to interference (in internal affairs of Pakistan)."
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