Won't oppose China
publicly for oppressing Muslims because China helps us: Imran Khan
'Imran Khan said
Pakistan is "really grateful" to the Chinese government. "We
have decided that whatever issues we will have with China, we will deal with
them privately. We will not go public," he said'.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has said his
government has decided not to highlight the plight and oppression of Uighur
Muslims in China because the Chinese government has helped Pakistan.
Imran Khan said this during an interview
to Foreign Policy on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum
at Davos, Switzerland.
Asked why he has been silent about China's
oppression of Muslims in Xinjiang and elsewhere while he keeps raking Kashmir
and India, Imran Khan said, "...China has helped us. China has come to
help our government when we were at the rock bottom."
Imran Khan said Pakistan is "really
grateful" to the Chinese government. "We have decided that whatever
issues we will have with China, we will deal with them privately. We will not
go public," Imran Khan was quoted as saying by Foreign Policy.
Besides this, Imran Khan gave another reason for
not raising voice against China's oppression of Muslims. He said he
"frankly doesn't know much about it".
"One main reason is that the scale of what
is going on in China-and frankly, I don't know much about it, I just occasionally
read about it-is nothing compared to what is happening in Kashmir," Imran
Khan said.
Condition of Uighurs Muslims in China
China has been condemned internationally for
cracking down on the Uighur Muslims, who are a religious minority. China has
been accused of oppressing the Uighurs by sending them to mass detention camps,
interfering in their religious activities and sending the community to undergo
some form of forceful re-education or indoctrination. However, Pakistan has
stayed silent over this issue.
When India abrogated Article
370 in August last year, Pakistan ramped up its rhetoric against New Delhi and
expressed concern over the condition of Muslims in Kashmir and elsewhere, and
called himself to be an ambassador of the Kashmiri people.
However, when it
comes to China's treatment of Muslims, Pakistan has been mum and when asked to
comment on it, the Pakistan PM has tried to brush it aside saying that there is
a lot going on in its own country.
The United States
had also asked Pakistan to express the "same level" of concern about
Muslims detentions in Western China as they do for Kashmir.
"...I would
like to see the same level of concern expressed about Muslims who are being
detained in Western China, literally in concentration-like conditions. And so
being concerned about the human rights of Muslims does extend more broadly than
Kashmir, and you've seen the administration very involved here during the UN
General Assembly and trying to shine a light on the horrific conditions that
continue to exist for Muslims throughout China," Alice Wells, US Acting
Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia had said in September last year
while replying to a question about Pakistan PM's concerns about Kashmir.
(With inputs from ANI)
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