Pakistan govt has made country irrelevant internationally, its democracy collapsing: Imran Khan

Islamabad [Pakistan], June 23 : Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief and former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said the Shehbaz Sharif government has made the country irrelevant internationally and its democracy, rule of law and the entire economic and institutional structure were collapsing.

The PTI chief was referring to the India-US joint statement, which labelled Pakistan as a promoter of cross-border terrorism in India.

The statement said the US and India stand together to counter global terrorism and unequivocally condemn terrorism and violent extremism in all its forms and manifestations. US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated the call for concerted action against all UN-listed terrorist groups including Al-Qa'ida, ISIS/Daesh, Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT), Jaish-e- Mohammad (JeM), and Hizb-ul-Mujhahideen.

The statement read: "They strongly condemned cross-border terrorism, the use of terrorist proxies and called on Pakistan to take immediate action to ensure that no territory under its control is used for launching terrorist attacks. They called for the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai and Pathankot attacks to be brought to justice."

In response to the statement, Imran Khan said: "Gen Bajwa along with his PDM cronies claimed that I had isolated Pakistan internationally. The question we want to ask him and PDM is that after a year in government and countless trips of Pakistan's FM to the US, the joint India/US statement reduces Pakistan to a promoter of cross-border terrorism in India and nothing more."

"So now the imported government experiment has not just made Pakistan irrelevant internationally but our democracy, rule of law and the entire economic and institutional structure is also collapsing right in front of our eyes," Khan wrote.

Relations between India and Pakistan have been under strain, with cross-border terrorism being one of the many thorny issues impairing bilateral ties. The nuclear-armed neighbours have fought three wars, two of them over Jammu and Kashmir.