Daily Times

Former prime minister Imran Khan seeks a good relationship with neighbouring India but says there is “no chance” of this happening while the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) remains in power in Delhi.

Mr Khan enthused to The Telegraph about the potential economic benefits that establishing trade between the two arch geopolitical rivals would bring but said these would never be realised until Delhi changes its stance on the disputed region of Indian-administered Kashmir.

“The benefits would be enormous. But, we are stuck on this issue and we need a strong roadmap to resolve it. I think it’s possible but the BJP government is so hardline, they have a nationalistic stance on issues,” said Mr Khan. “It is frustrating as you have no chance [for a resolution] as they whip up these nationalistic feelings. And, once this genie of nationalism is out of the bottle it is very difficult to put it back in again.”In 2019, the BJP, which adheres to a Hindu nationalist ideology, controversially scrapped the autonomous status that Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir had enjoyed since independence, bringing it under central control.

Over 70 years ago, the United Nations Security Council called on India and Pakistan to hold plebiscites in their respective parts of Jammu and Kashmir to give residents the choice of which country to join. Islamabad says Delhi has ignored its requests to hold a poll. “All we know is that they should have a roadmap for the solution of Kashmir. People in Pakistan cannot accept that Kashmiris, who were given their right by the international community to choose their destiny through a plebiscite, have seen India steamroll this resolution,” said Khan. “Then, when they took away the statehood [of Indian-administered Kashmir] we had no choice but to cool off our relationship with India.”

Pakistan is headed to the polls next autumn for its next general election. Mr Khan, who survived an assassination attempt on November 4, was ousted from power in April after a no-confidence vote but is widely tipped to return as prime minister.

If elected, he said he would seek to establish good relations with all of his neighbours, including the Taliban in Afghanistan and Iran’s Supreme Leader, as well as treading the geopolitical tightrope by maintaining good relations with both China and the United States.

China has referred to Pakistan as its “all-weather partner” and invested heavily in the country while Pakistan historically was an ally of the United States but relations have soured in recent years. “We really need a relationship with both countries. What I do not want is another Cold War situation when we are in blocks, like in the last Cold War we were allied with the United States,” said Khan. “The whole of Central Asia, Afghanistan, became out of our orbit. My main concern for Pakistan is how to lift 120 million out of poverty and the best way to do that is if we can have a relationship with everyone, to trade with everyone, so we can help our population.”