WASHINGTON: United States lawmaker Ilhan Omar‘s conference with just recently ousted Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and her “informal, personal” see to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) did not represent the United States federal government in any way, an authorities said on Thursday.
India had on Thursday condemned Omar’s check out to PoK as violative of India’s territorial integrity and sovereignty and that it reflected her “narrow-minded” politics.
The Democratic Congresswoman is on a four-day check out to Pakistan that started on April 20. On Wednesday, she fulfilled Imran Khan along with gone to a part of PoK.
Speaking with ANI, Derek Chollet, counselor to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated “It’s an informal individual see and it does not represent any policy modification on behalf of the United States government.”
Omar, a Somali American who comes from President Joe Biden‘s Democratic Party, had after her see to PoK said Kashmir should get more attention from the United States, which elicited stern condemnation from India.
“I don’t believe that it (Kashmir) is being spoken about to the extent it requires to in Congress however likewise with the administration,” Omar told reporters after visiting PoK. Condemning her see to PoK, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi reporters in New Delhi at a media instruction, “Let me just say that if such a politician wishes to practice her narrow-minded politics at house, that’s her business.”
“But violating our territorial integrity and sovereignty … makes this ours and we think the go to is condemnable,” Bagchi stated.
The Islamabad go to by Omar, who represents Minnesota in the US House of Representatives, is the first by an American legislator considering that the new Pakistan federal government took office. Her conference with Imran Khan at his residence at Bani Gala has actually been criticised since the ouster Pakistan premier had accused Washington of conspiracy to remove his federal government.
When asked what the United States made from the Omar-Khan meeting, in specific, Chollet said, “Congresswoman’s visit was a personal check out. It was not something that the State Department helped to arrange so I do not have much to discuss it. Since it was a check out made in her individual capacity.”
Omar is the very first naturalized person of African birth to being in the US Congress. She has been a singing critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and has previously questioned Biden administration officials over what she stated was their “failure” to criticize the Indian government on the problem of human rights and its actions against its Muslim minorities in India.
In a recent hearing in which Omar questioned Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, testifying before your home Foreign Affairs Committee. Omar raised concerns about the United States’s history of getting near undemocratic leaders as a technique to reveal strength in numbers versus a foe.
Published at Fri, 22 Apr 2022 05:12:36 +0000