Documents recently leaked reveal Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar saying that Pakistan can “no longer try to maintain a middle ground between China and the United States" and "should avoid giving the appearance of appeasing the West".
The documents were leaked online through the Discord messaging platform and were published by The Washington Post.
Called 'The Discord Leaks', they "provide a glimpse into the private calculations by key emerging powers, including India, Brazil, Pakistan, and Egypt, as they attempt to straddle allegiances in an era when America is no longer the world’s unchallenged superpower," said the Post.
In an internal memo she titled 'Pakistan’s Difficult Choices', Khar said trying to preserve Pakistan’s partnership with the US threatens the country’s “real strategic” partnership with China.
The documents also reveal PM Shehbaz's conversation regarding the United Nations’ voting on the Ukraine and Russia conflict. The document, dated February 17, show that the government was concerned about renewed Western pressure to back a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion.
When the UN General Assembly voted, Pakistan was among the 32 countries that abstained.
One of his aides advised him that supporting the measure would signal a shift in Pakistan’s position following its earlier abstention on a similar resolution. They also said that Islamabad has the ability to negotiate trade and energy deals with Russia, and backing the resolution could jeopardize those ties.
As per the US news publication, Pakistani officials refused to comment on the matter. The leaked document comes at a time when the US has said that it has no objection to Pakistan’s decision to import oil from Moscow.
Meanwhile, the report also showed that India too is avoiding taking sides between Washington and Moscow. One leaked document details a February 22 conversation between Indian national security adviser Ajit Kumar Doval and his Russian counterpart, Nikolay Patrushev.
"Doval assured Patrushev of India’s support for Russia in multilateral venues and that New Delhi was working to ensure the war did not come up during a Group of 20 meetings chaired by India, despite considerable pressure to do so," as per The Washington Post.
Doval also cited India’s resistance to pressure to support the Western-backed UN resolution over Ukraine, saying his country “would not deviate from the principled position it had taken in the past.”