Pakistan’s newly elected prime minister Shehbaz Sharif has vowed to strengthen his strategically located country’s ties with neighboring China and expressed the desire for developing relations with the United States based on equality.
Sharif, 70, Monday replaced Imran Khan, whose promise to pursue an independent foreign policy, away from American influence, was seen as harming Islamabad’s relations with the United States and European countries, especially on the question of a neutral stance on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Khan was ousted with a no-confidence vote in the lower chamber of the Parliament, following weeks of political instability due to Khan’s strained relations with Pakistan’s military and his accusations of the United States orchestrating a regime change in Pakistan. Washington has said there is absolutely no truth to Khan’s
Sharif, whose Pakistan Muslim League (N) party is part of an Opposition alliance, has been under pressure after Khan’s repeated allegations that the Opposition parties worked at the behest of a foreign power to vote him out of power before the competition of Khan’s five-year term.
The new prime minister has sounded Western-friendly but he also made clear in his first speech in the Parliament that his government would work closely with Beijing and speed up the completion of $60 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor, a key part of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Sharif, who is brother of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, noted that the historic Pakistan-US relations have witnessed “ups and downs.”
He acknowledged that the US is the destination for Pakistani exports worth billions of dollars.
“We need to have ties on the basis of equality,” he said.
Sharif, who will head the government in a highly charged domestic political environment, also addressed Khan’s allegations about the Opposition working with the US to vote him out of power.
In this respect, he said the parliamentary committee on security will be provided an in-camera briefing on the diplomatic cable that Khan cited as proof of “foreign conspiracy” against his PTI government.
Sharif offered that he would immediately leave the prime minister’s office if any evidence of a foreign conspiracy is established.
On his nuclear-armed country’s relations with the other South Asian nuclear power, India, Sharif said he would like to mend relation but conditioned progress with resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, considerate a flashpoint in the region.
Meanwhile, Imran Khasn’s supporters have held massive protrests across Pakistanin in an indication that the country would see heightened political tensions in the months ahead.
