Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has praised Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar for standing up to US pressure and continuing the purchase of discounted oil from Russia, and lamented that the current government in Islamabad doesn’t display the same kind of backbone.
“If India, which got independence at the same time as Pakistan - if New Delhi can take a firm stand and make their foreign policy as per the needs of its people, then who are they [Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government] who are towing the line?” Khan asked as a massive Independence Day rally in Lahore on Saturday.
“They [the US] ordered India not to buy oil from Russia. India is the US’s strategic ally. Pakistan is not. Let us see what India’s foreign minister said when the US asked them not to buy Russian oil,” Khan said.
The former prime minister then played a clip of the Indian foreign minister from his June 3 appearance at a security forum in Bratislava, Slovakia, where he responded to a moderator asking him whether Delhi was “funding” the conflict in Ukraine by purchasing Russian crude oil.
“Tell me, [Europe] buying Russian gas is not funding the war? I mean why is – it’s only Indian money and oil coming to India which funds but it’s not gas coming to Europe which funds? Somewhere – let’s be a little even-handed. If countries in Europe and the West and the United States are so concerned, why don’t they allow Iranian oil to come into the market? Why don’t they allow Venezuelan oil to come into the market? I mean they’ve squeezed every other source of oil we have, and then say ‘ok guys, you must not go into the market and get the best deal for your people,’” Jaishankar retorted.
“Jaishankar is telling them ‘who are you?’ Jaishankar said that ‘Europe is buying gas from Russia and we will buy it as people need it.’ This is what an independent country is,” Khan said, praising the Indian foreign minister for standing up for New Delhi's interests.
The former Pakistani prime minister recalled that he too had spoken to Russia about buying oil before his ouster. “But this government has no courage to say no to US pressure. Fuel prices are skyrocketing, people are below the poverty line. I am against this slavery,” Khan stressed.
The remarks went viral on social media, with both Pakistanis and Indians expressing surprise over Khan’s comments and praising him for his forthright sentiment.
Separately Saturday, Reuters reported that a senior Indian central banking official had indicated that Washington was concerned over an Indian tanker’s alleged involvement in the export of fuel made from Russian crude to the United States using a convoluted scheme of high-seas transfers, in contravention of US sanctions.
According to the report, Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor Michael Patra recently told an audience of government officials and bankers that “an Indian ship met a Russian tanker in mid-seas, picked up oil in the mid-seas, came to a port in Gujarat, it was processed in that port and converted into a distillate which actually goes into making single-use plastic.”
“The refined output was put back on that ship and it set sail without a destination. In the mid-seas it received the destination so it reached its course, went to New York. So that‘s the way war works. It works in strange ways,” Patra reportedly said, without providing any further details.
India took advantage of deep discounts on Russian crude oil supplies this past spring as Moscow sought to reorient its contracts away from Europe and the United States as Brussels and Washington began slapping restrictions on Russian crude oil, natural gas and coal.
Comeback Khan
Imran Khan served as Pakistan's prime minister between August 2018 and April 2022. His tenure saw an unprecedented cooling of relations with the US, and a strengthening of ties with Russia and China. In early 2019, Khan presided over a security crisis caused by a series of armed clashes and cross-border airstrikes across the de facto border in the disputed Kashmir region.
After his ouster in April amid suspected behind-the-scenes meddling in Pakistani politics by Washington, Khan has made a series of forthright statements criticizing the US and deriding his successor as an American "puppet." In recent weeks, Khan has pushed for early general elections, indicating his intention to make another attempt at the premiership.