Pakistan Joined US' 'War on Terror' in Afghanistan for Money: PM Imran Khan

Prime Minister Imran Khan expressed regrets about Pakistan's joining the United States' two-decade long war.

Imran Khan in his interview with CNN, in a very condescending mood, explained the real story of the Haqqanis to Becky Anderson.

(Photo: PTI / Altered by The Quint)

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday, 21 December, expressed regrets about joining the United States' two-decade long war in Afghanistan, and called it a "self-inflicted wound."

Observing that the decision to participate in the "war on terror" was made in the interest of money, PM Khan said:

"We ourselves are responsible... as we let (others) use us, sacrificed the reputation of our country for aid and made a foreign policy that went against the public interest (and was devised) for money."

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, as quoted by news agency PTI

'People of Pakistan Were Not a Consideration'

Khan, addressing officers at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Islamabad on Tuesday, said that he had been close to those deliberating upon the decision to participate in the war in 2001.

"And so, I am well aware of what considerations went behind the decision. Unfortunately, the people of Pakistan were not a consideration," he was quoted as saying by PTI.

"The considerations, instead, were the same as in the 1980s, when we participated in the Afghan jihad," he added.

The US military had withdrawn from Afghanistan in August this year, twenty years after it had invaded the country and unseated the Taliban. Following its retreat, the central Asian nation had fallen into a humanitarian crisis, as the militant organisation seized control of the country's reigns once again.

Afghanistan has broken free from the "shackles of slavery," Pakistan Prime Minister Khan had said on 16 August, a day after the takeover, endorsing the Taliban's rise to power.

"The Taliban hold all of Afghanistan and if they can sort of now work towards an inclusive government, get all the factions together, Afghanistan could have peace after 40 years. But if it goes wrong and which is what we are really worried about, it could go to chaos. The biggest humanitarian crisis, a huge refugee problem," he had said in September,

(With inputs from PTI)