UNITED NATIONS: On Thursday, the Foreign Minister of Pakistan Bilawal Bhutto Zardari firmly defended the visit of former prime minister Imran Khan to Moscow earlier this year. He said the former prime minister did not know that Ukraine’s invasion would be initiated by Russia on the same day of the visit.
Bilawal gave the remarks while answering a question from a journalist on Khan’s visit to Russia and how the new coalition government would address the mistakes of the former prime minister.
Bilawal commented that he would absolutely defend Khan’s visit to Russia as it was part of his foreign policy. He added that no one had a sixth sense, and there was no possible way for the former premier to know about the conflict. The foreign minister further stated that it was an innocent act and that it would be unfair to penalise Pakistan.
A journalist then questioned if the government was going to continuously defend Khan’s government, to which Bilawal replied that they could not defend his policies but would defend Khan on his actions on foreign policy, especially on the Russia-Ukraine issue.
While addressing the UN food security conference, the foreign minister said that the new government would take immediate action on challenges to the economy. During an interview with Voice of America (VOA), he somewhat defended Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s now infamous statement ‘Beggers can’t be choosers’ by saying he conveyed to Secretary Antony Blinken that Pakistan did not believe in begging but wanted to establish economic ties.