At the heart of Pakistan’s current political crisis is a letter that Prime Minister Imran Khan has described as evidence that the country's opposition has colluded with a foreign power to overthrow his government.
On Sunday, Khan asked President Arif Alvi to dissolve assemblies and call fresh elections, plunging the nuclear-armed nation into a state of uncertainty.
He was supposed to face a no-confidence motion that day, as an alliance of opposition parties claimed to have gained enough support to prove that the majority of lawmakers in the 342-member National Assembly were on their side and against Khan.
But Qasim Suri, the deputy speaker of the National Assembly and a member of Khan’s party, did not allow the vote to go through, saying it was being pushed at the behest of a foreign power.
Khan disclosed the existence of the “threatening” letter at a massive rally of his supporters on March 27 in Islamabad.
The entire contents of the letter haven’t been made public. It contains a message purportedly received by Asad Majeed, a Pakistani diplomat in Washington, from Donald Lu, the US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs. Majeed relayed the diplomatic cable to Islamabad.
Lu had warned Majeed of implications for Pakistan if Khan survived the no-confidence vote, the prime minister alleged in a televised address.
Prime Minister Khan has also been questioned on why some dissident lawmakers of his party visited the US embassy days before the...
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