Imran’s foreign plot claim ‘fanciful’: UK minister

UK Minister for Armed Forces James Heappey on Wednesday described former premier Imran Khan’s allegations of foreign conspiracy as “fanciful” as he stressed that his removal through a no-trust move was Pakistan’s domestic affair.

The British minister’s statement came on a day when PTI chief Imran led his supporters to Islamabad seeking early elections and dissolution of assemblies.

Imran was ousted from power last month and since then he has been going places, building pressure on the coalition government to announce a date for the next elections as he called the current set-up “imposed from outside”.

“Well, with all respect to your former prime minister [Imran Khan] and, there is a great deal of respect from the UK government for him, I'm afraid that's simply not the case,” the UK armed forces minister told a group of journalists here when asked whether or not the UK had endorsed Imran’s allegations of a “foreign conspiracy”.

Also read: Where is political leadership taking the country?

“What is happening in Pakistan at the moment politically is entirely the consequence of [the country’s] domestic politics, and any suggestion that there is somehow some sort of outside interference is utterly fanciful,” he added.

“It is domestic politics that are causing what is going on in Islamabad right now, and nothing more, nothing less,” he said as supporters of Imran descended into the federal capital.

The UK armed forces minister is on a maiden trip to Pakistan and met senior civil and military authorities including Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Heappey said he had held “great discussions” with Pakistani authorities on expanding cooperation between the two countries.

“I think I’m here for two reasons principally … it’s important to keep up relations. Pakistan is a country with whom the UK has an enormous shared history and you are a key strategic partner of ours and a really important part of what we are trying to do in the world now.”

Heappey added that the second thing was that he was the minister in the UK government responsible for bringing all of its interpreters “who work so amazingly with us in Afghanistan [and] out of Afghanistan to the UK”.

“Your government has been amazingly helpful actually in helping us in that endeavor. And it matters enormously to the British public has a real sense that there's a sort of debt of honour that we owe.”

Also read: Experts raise red flag for economy

On Pakistan’s stance on the Ukrainian conflict, he said the UK was certainly disappointed over the visit of former premier Imran to Russia at a time when President Vladimir Putin was ready to invade that country.

The minister said the UK certainly did not want Pakistan to maintain “neutrality” on the conflict, but added that it respected Islamabad’s decision.

“I think the UK has to respect that your governments are balancing relationships in difficult neighbourhoods and so it's not my job to lecture or to hector your government into a position, but I was listened to, I'm confident that deep down we share the same values and frankly that's what matters most.”

On the Kashmir dispute, he said the UK government had a longstanding view that India and Pakistan were both key members of the Commonwealth with whom his country had a long-standing relationship.

“And we really, really, really don't want to have to choose between the two. And I don't think we see any reason to choose between the two. Kashmir is a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan and fundamentally it is for India and Pakistan to resolve. Now, if the UK as a friend of both India and Pakistan has a role in that, then that's something for India and Pakistan to invite us into a due course. But it's not for me to turn up from London and try to give you an answer to a problem that I frankly don't understand anywhere near well enough to try and tell you how to solve.”