Regional/International Affairs
By N. P. Upadhyaya (Aryal)
Kathmandu: Unbelievable it may sound but it is true. It is a mind-boggling affair in that how could a person who had all along with a bad mouth and spitted venom for the unceremoniously ousted Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan speak tentatively in defense of the political dignitary whom he hated most till yesterday?
Politics never travels straight perhaps? This gentleman remained ever against the functioning of Imran Khan while the latter was Prime Minister of Pakistan and now suddenly a volte-face?
He treated and took Imran Khan as his personal “adversary” not so in the distant past.
However, things appear to have changed and the “gentleman” has come to his senses the moment he is a part of the “government” where one has to necessarily follow the set policies of the regime as per the demands of the nation and the national interests — albeit political ones.
Yes! We are talking of the changed stance of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the world’s youngest foreign minister of Pakistan who spoke tentatively in “favor” of Imran Khan’s foreign policy initiatives which forced Khan to proceed to Moscow despite the warnings from certain highly powerful and influential political quarters suggesting PM Khan not to visit Moscow or else face the music.
Bhutto while defending then PMKhan for his Moscow visit in February early this year said so many things which compel us all to think that “when being inside the state machinery one has to act as per the structured policies that have been crafted by the State in its political interests and conducts.
Let’s listen to how Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari defends his political “bête noir” Khan on foreign policy matters:
Bhutto says: “I would absolutely defend the former PM (Imran Khan) for his visit to Russia. PM Khan visited Russia without knowing the war would break out (between Russia and Ukraine). It is unfair to punish Pakistan for such an innocent act”. Khan conducted the visit as a part of his foreign policy and without knowing that Russia is all set and prepared to declare war on Ukraine.”
The most important part of Bhutto’s defense of Imran Khan was the use of the phrase “no one has the sixth sense”?
BBB or Baby Bilawal Bhutto to which he is no more a baby in his maiden trip to the US at the invitation of his US counterpart, Antony Blinken, addressing a press conference said, “he completely defends Imran Khan’s visit to Russia as there was no possibility that Imran Khan would have known about Russia’s plan to invade Ukraine”.
Here is a twist on the Himalayan dimension:
According to the ousted PM Khan, the decision to visit Moscow at that point in time was also given a “go ahead” by the all-powerful Army in Pakistan.
This, if so, means much for the people and the State of Pakistan.
Simply because, let’s presume for the moment that the Army had the knowledge that if and when PM Khan visited Moscow, the entire US administration would instantly become annoyed and may, in all likelihood, wish to oust the incumbent Prime Minister?
Should this then mean that the Army too was complicit in the entire “game plan” that ousted PM Khan?
However, we at this paper are least interested in what were the politics behind the scene during the ouster, as the internal politics of Pakistan must be and is internal affairs of friendly Pakistan and thus we have no authority to expand the affair out of proportion which may be “objectionable” to the friendly people of Pakistan.
It is their exclusively internal affair and thus we have nothing to say more on the concern that revolves around PM Khan’s ouster.
But then yet, it would be opportune and an act of wisdom to read in between the lines of what the Indian daily The Hindustan Times writes on the affair we just discussed in the earlier paragraph.
For the HT news desk, Poulomi Ghosh writes on May 20, “While Imran Khan’s Moscow visit exactly at the time when Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized the military invasion into Ukraine, leading to the ongoing war, came under fire, Khan has made it clear that it was not his decision. The establishment (Army) gave him a go-ahead to continue his scheduled trip to Russia. Khan alleged that the US was miffed with him because of his Moscow visit, though the US has time and again distanced from Pakistan’s internal crisis in the run-up to the no-trust motion”.
We leave it up to the readers to draw their own conclusions.
However, the Indian media, as far as we understand, remains ever in a state of “hunt” to accuse the Army of Pakistan.
(Pakistani media’s inaction has benefitted Indian media to twist the Pakistani issues in the desired way that suits their interests).
So while drawing conclusions, one has to keep in mind the fact that Indian inimical media prefers a greater conflict between the forces that count in Pakistan with the sole aim of “weakening” the Islamic Republic.
Bhutto is facing the US Press not only exhibited his political maturity but also presented himself as an astute diplomat in the way he handled the “serious an issue that it was” in the eyes of the US which, Khan charged as the main force which sidelined him from the Islamabad political/authority of the State.
Bhutto’s soothing and sympathetic words brought into use to defend Khan’s maiden Russia visit under the invitation of President Vladimir Putin hints or signals so many political messages to all those “to whom it concerns”.
If one were to believe the continued pronouncements by the ousted PM Khan who claims that he was “ousted” as per the signals of the lone Super Power, the USA, then the sudden and unexpected turn of events in the US wherein Bhutto summarily rejected the theory that “Khan by visiting Moscow” have had taken a different foreign policy track and that had in several ways annoyed the Cold War ally the US.
Given the rumors in Washington DC that PM Khan is “solely responsible” for the “abject deterioration of the Pakistan-US ties” and the new FM’s determined claim that Khan did no wrong by visiting Moscow does tell that Bhutto would wish to erase the misnomer that Khan should be held answerable for the corrosion in the ties with the US.
Now again to Bhutto:
FM Bhutto Zardari in many more ways than one appears to have jolted, let’s presume so, the entire US administration when he told his US counterpart, veteran diplomat, Antony Blinken, that PM Khan did what was in the best interest of Pakistan.
So says ousted PM Khan that why he wanted to visit Russia simply because, according to The Hindustan Times, May 20, “and Pakistan was trying to establish its ties with Russia as Pakistan-Russia ties have always been strained as Pakistan had sided with the US against Russia in the Cold War fought against the Soviets and the US in Afghanistan”.
Observers in Nepal opine that whatever Khan says of the US is tentatively correct as we too have been watching the political alignment and realignments that were in place during the frightening Cold War period and it is no longer a secret that Pakistan all along had sided with the Super Power US as it saw its national interests served by aligning with the US which, as the things stood then, knowingly or unknowingly tied itself with Pakistan for multiple political reasons.
Pakistan needed a strong partner and the US found in Pakistan a good and reliable partner to counter the increasing Soviet threat in South Asia more so in Afghanistan.
Foremost was the Indian regime was excessively close with the then USSR and this demanded the US to go in search for an alternative regional force and a matching regional ally which was Pakistan.
In the process, this Pakistani alliance with the US or vice versa was very important and significant too for the US to challenge the then USSR, as stated earlier, which had invaded Afghanistan.
Nepali observers even claim that the Pakistani establishment under various and different “Military Generals” who were very close to the US regime brought Pakistan “more than needed close” to the US.
To recall, when Pakistan was dismembered/fractured/split in the seventies, its ally-the US did not come to assist Pakistan which saw the emergence of Bangladesh.
Now back to the point:
FM Bhutto jolted the Indian establishment when he in New York only recently, May 11, raised the issue of the India’ Illegally occupied Kashmir issue.
Going one step further, the Pak foreign minister wrote a straight letter to the UN highlighting the Kashmir issue.
Perhaps no foreign minister from Pakistan had done this act thus BB must be admired by the entire South Asians for having brought the issue of Kashmir to the forefront.
Needless to say, the Kashmir issue is a flash point in South Asia which may bring in the two South Asian nuclear regional forces face to face any time if and when the two nation’s conflict takes new dimension.
The letter to the UN on Delimitation: FM Bhutto wrote a letter to the President and Secretary-General of the United Nations Security Council drawing attention to the illegal demarcation of Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, which seeks to reduce the Muslim population in the region.
Bhutto addressed a letter to the President of the United Nations Security Council and the United Nations Secretary-General, reports APP May 11, urging them to take immediate cognizance of India’s ploy of reducing Muslims’ representation in Indian occupied Kashmir (IOK) through unlawful “delimitation” exercise.
According to the statement, the foreign minister urged the UN security council to remind India that Jammu and Kashmir remains an internationally recognized dispute and that it should refrain from bringing about any illegal demographic changes in the occupied territory.
Bhutto called for prevailing upon India to let the people of IOK determine their own future through a free and fair plebiscite under the relevant UN Security Council resolutions.
Bhutto’s main thrust was to draw the attention of the UN Security Council which, according to Bhutto, so far has miserably failed in materializing its own committed pronouncements made some seven decades ago.
Be it known to all that “Pakistan continues to internationally highlight the alarming situation in the IOJK in the wake of India’s illegal and unilateral actions on August 5 2019”.
According to the statement, as per Geo-news dated May 11, 2022, Pakistani foreign minister Bilawal underscored that these illegal measures constitute a flagrant violation of international law, including the UN Charter, and said the relevant Security Council resolutions on the Jammu and Kashmir dispute were ipso facto illegal and null and void.
Nepali observers take Bilawal’s outbursts against the Indian regime in New York to have been the first-ever strongest statement made by any foreign minister from the US soil in the past.
FM Bhutto highlighted India’s gross, systematic and widespread human rights violations in IOJK.
He also drew particular attention to the ongoing Indian efforts, according to Geo-news, to further marginalize, dis-empower, and divide the beleaguered Kashmiri population.
He noted that this was a shameless assault on the identity, fundamental rights of the people, and culture of IOJK, and was designed to pave the way for installing yet another puppet government in IOJK that is pliant to BJP-RSS combine, and panders to its “Hindutva” ideology.
Weaving all the threads together, what appears to the analysts in Nepal that the emergence of Bhutto as the new foreign minister of Pakistan will mean much to the arrogant Indian regime in the days to come!
Given Pakistan’s “iron-brother ties” with China and Pakistan’s desire to inch closer to the Russian Federation — both the countries being a threat as perceived by the US — what remains to be seen as to how the US administration “resets” its recently deteriorated ties with Pakistan.
To add insult to injury, Bhutto, by the time this story is being written, is in China.
This is his first-ever visit to China.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Bhutto have already held bilateral talks in the Chinese city of Guangzhou.
What is more than interesting is that FM Bhutto is in China together with his Deputy Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar.
To recall, Bhutto in his recent interviews with the media after his talks with US Secretary of State Blinken, ruled out that Pakistan’s growing relationship with the US would hurt its ties to Beijing.
Well, this is Bhutto’s version. However, how Blinken will take Bhutto’s “one-on-one talks with China’s powerful FM Wang Yi will perhaps determine the real course of US Pakistan ties.
Add to this, sooner than later, Bhutto may land in Moscow at the invitation of Sergei Lavrov.
In the opinions of political pundits monitoring South Asian regional politics, the US may have a tough time “resting” its deteriorated ties with Pakistan.
Let’s wait and see how the US reacts and how regional politics unfolds after Bilawal’s fresh visit to China.
Asia is now a theatre of Geopolitical rivalry:
According to veteran journalist and Ambassador Yub Nath Lamsal “Asia has come to be a new theatre of geopolitical rivalry between big powers. The big power rivalry in Asia is of quadrangular nature: 1. between the United States and China, 2. between China and India, 3. between US-India combined and China, 4. between China-Russia combined and the USA.
These countries are recalibrating their power projection and building their own strength in Asia. China containment has been the primary strategic goal of the United States at present with which Washington has devised new strategic initiatives and accordingly created a number of Asia-focused alliances”.
It remains now to be seen where Pakistan fits into the unfolding quadrangle rivalry in the South Asian region?
Pakistani choice shall mean much to the South Asian regional balance. That’s all.
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