'Pak made irrelevant', Imran Khan charges after India-US joint statement

The joint statement urged Pak to act against cross-border terrorism

Imran Khan Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan | AFP

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan hit out at former Pakistan Army General and Pakistan government for making Pakistan 'irrelevant' as the India-US joint statement urged Lahore to take strong action against cross-border terrorism.

The White House issued a joint statement during the late hours of Thursday, following a meeting between US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is on a state visit to Washington. In the statement, the leaders urged Pakistan to take measures to prevent its territory from being used as a launch pad for terror attacks. “They strongly condemned cross-border terrorism, the use of terrorist proxies and called on Pakistan to take immediate action to ensure that no territory under its control is used for launching terrorist attacks,” the leaders said in the statement. 

“They called for the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai and Pathankot attacks to be brought to justice,” it said. The leaders also called for concerted action against all UN-listed terrorist groups including Al-Qa’ida, ISIS/Daesh, Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), and Hizb-ul-Mujhahideen. 

In a tweet, Imran Khan called out former Pakistan Army General Qamar Bajwa and Pakistan Democratic Movement. Khan tweeted, “The question we want to ask him and PDM is that after a year in government and countless trips of Pakistan's FM to the US, the joint India/US statement reduces Pakistan to a promoter of cross-border terrorism in India and nothing more.” 

Khan added, “So now the imported govt experiment has not just made Pakistan irrelevant internationally but our democracy, rule of law and the entire economic and institutional structure are also collapsing right in front of our eyes.” Khan charged that there is no balancing statement about “gross human rights abuse in Kashmir or the appalling treatment of minorities in India.”

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