Imran Ahmad Khan Niazi, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, lost power in 2022 because of a secret cable! Imran had made such a claim long ago. Now, an American news agency has reported that Imran had to lose power due to Washington DC’s diplomatic move, and the proof is there in a secret cable message, encrypted through Cipher codes.

Imran was ousted as Prime Minister in April 2022 after losing a Vote of Confidence in the National Assembly. At that period of time, the cricketer-turned-politician claimed that he had come to know about the cipher while serving as the Prime Minister. He further claimed that the US had conspired to remove him. Later, he softened his stand on the US, saying that his government wanted to normalise ties with Washington DC. He also blasted his successor Prime Minister Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif and the Pakistani Army for conspiring to remove him from office.

On August 5, 2023, an Islamabad Trial Court declared Imran guilty of “corrupt practices” in a case pertaining to concealing details of state gifts, and sentenced him to three years in prison. He would not be able to contest elections for the next five years after being found guilty in the Toshakhana Case. Although Imran has decided to challenge the verdict of the Islamabad Trial Court in a higher court, he is currently in jail. He has denied all the allegations against him, stressing that the arrangement has been made so that he could not participate in the Parliamentary Elections to be held in November 2023. However, he is hopeful that his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Party could win the upcoming elections.

In the second week of August 2023, the US-based news agency published a report on conspiracy against the former Prime Minister of Pakistan. The agency published the entire conversations between Dr Asad Majeed Khan, the then Ambassador of Pakistan to the US, and Donald Lu, a US diplomat serving as the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, recorded in the cipher. The two diplomats met a couple of weeks after Imran’s visit to Moscow on February 23-24, 2022. It should be noted that Russia invaded neighbouring Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and Imran took a neutral stance on the invasion. These two incidents angered the US, which decided to remove Imran as the Prime Minister of Pakistan. During their meeting, Lu told Dr Majeed: “People here and in Europe are quite concerned about why Pakistan is taking such an aggressively neutral position (on Ukraine), if such a position is even possible. It does not seem such a neutral stand to us.” He reportedly said: “It seems quite clear that this is the Prime Minister’s policy. I think if the No-Confidence Vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister.”

It was Dr Majeed who sent his conversations with Lu to Islamabad in cipher. However, the message was leaked, and Imran mentioned about the cipher while alleging the US for conspiring against him. Within a month, the Vote of Confidence took place in the National Assembly, and Imran had to sacrifice his Prime Ministership.

Commenting on the US media report, Matthew Miller, the Spokesperson of the US Department of State, has said it is not mentioned anywhere in the report that Washington DC decided the next Prime Minister of Pakistan. He has stressed that the US publicly condemned Imran’s visit to Russia. “But as the former Pakistani ambassador to the United States himself has stated, the allegations that the United States has interfered in internal decisions about the leadership of Pakistan are false. As we have stated, they are false. They have always been false, and they remain false,” added Miller. Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry of Pakistan is yet to make comments on this issue.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das