Imran Khan, Bilawal Bhutto spar over Modi-Biden joint statement

The former Pakistan PM expressed his dissatisfaction with the joint statement issued by India and US, which strongly criticised Pakistan for its alleged support of terrorism.

Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan and Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari | File photos via Reuter and ANI

New Delhi: Hours after the release of a joint statement following talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden, former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan engaged in a war of words with the incumbent Shehbaz Sharif government through a vociferous tweet.

In his tweet, Khan took a dig at the current government, referring to them as “cronies” of General Bajwa, the former Pakistan Army chief.

He expressed his dissatisfaction with the joint statement issued by India and the US, which strongly criticised Pakistan for its alleged support of terrorism.

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… pic.twitter.com/2qyRqnHp5J

— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) June 23, 2023

The statement specifically called on “Pakistan to take immediate action to ensure that no territory under its control is used for launching terrorist attacks” and demanded the perpetrators of the Mumbai and Pathankot attacks be brought to justice.

Khan also criticised the one-year-old PDM government for the countless trips made by Pakistan’s Finance Minister Bilawal Bhutto to the US. He called it as a complete collapse of Pakistan’s democracy and its growing international irrelevance under the nation’s ‘imported government’.

In response to Khan’s tweet, Bilawal Bhutto shared an image of the joint statement issued by the US and India after the Modi-Trump meeting in 2020, which took place when Khan was Pakistan’s Prime Minister. Bhutto’s post included a playful emoji.

🤷‍♂️ https://t.co/OXVl9ttlXF pic.twitter.com/H3eqnKGa66

— BilawalBhuttoZardari (@BBhuttoZardari) June 23, 2023

The statement issued during the Modi-Trump meeting had identical wording when it came to addressing terrorism and the need to bring the perpetrators of attacks to justice.