WASHINGTON: The political fermentation in Pakistan echoed far down in the United States as well, where the UN chief prompted Islamabad to keep the legal process unprejudiced while the State Department underscored the need to follow “popular, indigenous and legal” principles.
The contestation that followed PTI principal Imran Khan’s controversial reflections against a womanish judge and the Islamabad police also drew the attention of the US media and Washington’s think tanks, where experts prompted ruling and opposition forces in Pakistan not to rock the boat.
On Monday autumn, the issue came up at a UN news briefing in New York as well when a journalist asked if the UN chief was apprehensive of the recent political developments in Pakistan. Stéphane Dujarric, the prophet for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said the UN chief was “apprehensive” of the charges brought against Imran Khan and emphasized the “ need for a competent, independent and unprejudiced legal process ”.
“The clerk general urges calm, lowering of pressures and respect for the rule of law, moral rights, and abecedarian freedoms,” he said.
At the US State Department, spokesperson Ned Price said Washington was also apprehensive of the charges against Imran Khan, but considered it “a matter for the Pakistani legal and judicial system”. “It isn’t directly a matter for the US, and that’s because we don’t have a position on one political seeker or party versus any other political seeker or party,” Mr. Price said at a press briefing.
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The United States, he said, supports the peaceful upholding of popular, indigenous, and legal principles in Pakistan and around the world.
In his address on Saturday evening, Imran Khan hovered to file cases against Islamabad police and also advised the bar that it would have to face the consequences for its alleged ‘prejudiced’ station against his party. The bar took strong exception to Imran Khan’s outburst against a womanish judge and initiated disdain of court proceedings against him.
In a report on the current situation in Pakistan, The New York Times reflected that “the move against Imran Khan is a major escalation of the power struggle between the government and the former leader and pitfalls renewed public uneasiness.”
The Washington Post noted that “the power struggle between Pakistan’s government and its ousted high minister has escalated dramatically, with authorities targeting the pro-Khan press ”.
Bloomberg, a US- grounded fiscal news line, reported “Pakistan’s bone Nominated bonds took a hit along with its currency and stocks after the government said it was considering legal action against the former high minister.” In Washington, still, people were more concerned about the impact of this conflict on Pakistan’s ailing frugality.
Prof Touqir Hussain, who teaches transnational relations at Georgetown University, noted that frugality “has been in trouble ago long” before the PTI- PDM conflict started. But he advised that “the battle is creating a profitable query, political insecurity and implicit civil uneasiness, which is hardly a terrain for enhancement of the frugality”.
Madiha Afzal, a scholar of Pakistan and Afghanistan affairs at the Brookings Institution in Washington, prompted the government to concentrate on flood tide victims and other pressing issues. “There’s no bigger precedence. Yet its focus is on political point-scoring,” she wrote in a tweet. “ What would be stylish for Pakistan? For the major political parties to sit down and downsize the situation. But it’s veritably doubtful to be.”
