Imran Khan demands US to dismiss Donald Lu for 'arrogance'

PESHAWAR: Former prime minister and PTI’s Chairman Imran Khan on Monday demanded the United State dismiss Donald Lu, assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs, for his involvement in Lettergate.

In an exclusive interview with CNN’s Becky Anderson, Imran Khan said that the US should take action against Donald Lu for “threatening” Pakistan and for his bad manners and attitude. 

“The US diplomat told Pakistan’s ambassador that unless “you get Imran Khan removed in a vote of no-confidence — which was not tabled but he seemed to know about it — Pakistan will suffer consequences,” Imran said while replying to a question.

“And then goes on to say, of course, if you get rid of him through the vote of no-confidence, all will be forgiven — such arrogance […] by the way Becky, this guy should be sacked for bad manners and sheer arrogance,” he added.

Imran Khan that he presented the cypher before the federal cabinet, the National Security Council (NSC), as it was “blatant interference in Pakistan’s affairs”.

When asked whether he got in touch with US President Joe Biden or other officials, Khan said the NSC had decided to issue a demarche and protest to the US in Pakistan and Washington as well.

In a response to a question, Khan said he had a “perfectly good” relationship with the Donald Trump administration, and it was only when Joe Biden came into power that the relations became strained.

He said that for some reason, which he still don’t know, Biden administration never got in touch with him; there was no US ambassador in Pakistan.

Giving reasons as to why he believes Washington was behind the regime change, Khan said that the US embassy was calling members of his party, “some of the backbenchers”, who were not happy. “Why were they meeting them?” he questioned, adding that they were the first ones who then jumped ships.

On a question about his Moscow visit, Khan replied that his visit was planned a long time back and all the stakeholders in Pakistan were on board — the military wanted a hardware from the Russians, the government wanted oil — hence, everything was planned a long time ago”. 

“How would I know that the day I land in Moscow, President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin would decide to attack on Ukraine?”

“I would regret the trip to Russia if we had known about the invasion and then I [had] gone in because I do not believe in military solutions,” he said in reply to a question about whether he regretted his trip to Russia or not.

In an exclusive interview, @ImranKhanPTI tells me a top US diplomat needs to resign for his role in what he claims was an American-backed plot to remove him from office. More on that and his future political plans here: pic.twitter.com/8ZU5coAq5l

— Becky Anderson (@BeckyCNN) May 23, 2022