“Pakistan’s Imran Khan Praises India for Continuing Russian Crude Purchases Despite U.S. Pressure,” is the headline of an Aug. 14 Sputnik article which reports on a speech given by former Prime Minister Khan to a large Independence Day rally in Lahore on Aug. 13. Khan really rubbed it in against the current Pakistani government (which overthrew him earlier this year, with full State Department backing), by praising the courageous foreign policy of traditional rival India, and its Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar, who stood up to the same State Department.
“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. “They [the U.S.] ordered India not to buy oil from Russia. India is the U.S.’s strategic ally. Pakistan is not. Let us see what India’s foreign minister said when the U.S. asked them not to buy Russian oil,” Khan continued.
Khan, who is calling for early general elections to try to return to power, then played a clip of the Indian foreign minister from his June 3 appearance at a security forum in Bratislava, Slovakia, in which he was asked him whether Delhi was “funding” the conflict by purchasing Russian crude oil? Jaishankar retorted in part: “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,’” rebuffed Jaishankar.
