By Zahid Shah

ISLAMABAD (TSAT) - Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday has criticized the European Union ambassadors in Islamabad for asking his country to condemn Russia.

Addressing a huge gathering in southern Punjab, Khan asked the EU envoys that their countries also wrote such letters to India when they bulldozed the UNSC resolutions in 2019.

“The European Ambassador wrote a letter to Pakistan asking to vote against Russia [In the UNGA] and condemn [Moscow attack on Ukraine]. I ask these ambassadors that you also wrote this letter to India,” Khan questioned.

He was referring to the Indian government's unilateral actions in August 2019, when they scrapped the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and arrested hundreds of Kashmiri people.

On March 2, the Denmark ambassador to Pakistan Lis Rosenholm posted a press release on her embassy official Twitter handle signed by the EU, Australia, Japan, UK, Canada, and Switzerland ambassador based in Islamabad and urged the Pakistani government to join them and condemn the Russian attack against Ukraine.

The move spread anger across the country and people strongly reacted to the western envoys' press release and called it against the diplomatic principles.

“Are we your slaves to follow whatever you do?.” Khan questioned the EU envoys over their letter asking Pakistan to join western countries against Russia.

Khan said, India violated the international laws and bulldozed the UNSC resolutions but no western country condemned New Delhi neither imposed sanctions nor cut trade ties with India.

“I want to remind my nation that it was Pakistan who stood with NATO in their war in Afghanistan and sacrificed over 80,000 lives in NATO war and caused over $100 billion loss to our economy,” Khan said.


“If I was the Prime Minister [that time] I would never have become part of the NATO war in Afghanistan.”

Khan said no NATO country appreciated Pakistan's sacrifices and neither thanked his country's huge human and economic loss.

“Some of you [NATO] blamed Pakistan for their defeat in Afghanistan despite they knew that Pakistan given huge sacrifices,".

Khan said it was for the first time in history that any friendly country had carried out drone attacks inside its ally's territories.

He was referring to the hundreds of US drone strikes on Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt from 2004 to 2018 which had been carried out under a tacit deal between the then military ruler Gen. Perez Musharraf and Washington. Islamabad denied any such deal.

He criticized former President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for allowing Washington to carry out drone strikes during their tenure and said they allowed the US because of fear that the West would freeze their illegal assets abroad.

“During my government, no drone attack has been carried out in Pakistan and if anyone tries it, I will order my air force to shot down because such acts are against international law,” Khan said.

“I want to say that till today Imran Khan has not bowed before anyone and I will not let my people bow down before anyone,” Khan said.

However, later Khan clarified that Pakistan does not want enmity with anyone.

“Russia, China, US, EU all are our good friends and we want friendship with all of them. We will be a partner in peace with everyone but will never become part of any war.”

He added that his country will join other nations to play its role and end the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

On Friday, Pakistan Foreign Ministry also expressed anger over some western countries' ambassadors based on Islamabad's public statement and urged the country to condemn Russia's attack on Ukraine.

During a weekly press briefing, Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman Asim Iftikhar Ahmad called the ambassador act as against “diplomatic norms and protocols.”


“I think it is a tricky tool – the social media platforms and one has to be careful in using them. Our Ambassadors also use Twitter abroad, but I think we responsibly use that and the important thing is that there are always certain diplomatic norms and protocols that we understand are to be followed,” he said.

“It is not usual diplomatic practice to say such things through the media, and we have made that clear,” he added.


“We expressed our concern about that [press release], because as I said that is not the way diplomacy should be practiced, and I think they have realized,” said Ahmad.

He added that the foreign ministry officials meet with ambassadors and its normal way of conducting diplomatic activities.

“We have no issue with that as we are engaging very pro-actively and we have also been meeting on short notice even though we are in the middle of preparing for a major conference in two weeks' time, the OIC-CFM.”

“The press release was not the right way and it has been conveyed to them,” he added.