WASHINGTON: The US State Department said on Friday that Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s trip to Pakistan was not sponsored by the US government, quashing speculations that she came as the Biden administration’s emissary.

Ms Omar, one of the first two Muslim members of the US Congress, reached Pakistan earlier this week on a four-day visit to Islamabad, Lahore, and Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

But it was her hour-long meeting with ousted prime minister Imran Khan on Wednesday that triggered speculations about the nature of her trip.

The issue also propped up at the State Department news briefing when a journalist reminded the department’s spokesperson Ned Price that Imran Khan was still blaming the United States for his ouster.

State Department claims Ms Omar not on govt-sponsored travel

“Is Ms Omar [t]here as a representative of the Biden administration to clear the air with Mr Khan?” the journalist asked.

“Well, as I understand it, Representative Omar is not visiting Pakistan on US government-sponsored travel, so I’d need to refer you to her office for questions on her travel,” Mr Price replied.

Mr Khan claims that a Washington-backed conspiracy was behind his ouster and has made this claim the main plank of his re-election campaign. Washington has rejected the allegation as “completely baseless”.

Diplomatic circles in Washington also rejected the suggestion that the Biden administration had sent Ms Omar to Islamabad as an emissary.

They pointed out that the Biden administration made no attempt to reach out to Mr Khan even when he was in power. Although, Mr Khan and others in his government publicly urged President Joe Biden to call the prime minister, but he never obliged.

The sources noted that both Mr Khan and Ms Omar campaign for curbing Islamophobia and perhaps it was this common factor that brought them together in Islamabad.

But he was not the only person she met in Islamabad. Ms Omar also met several other important figures — President Arif Alvi, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf — during her stay in Islamabad.

“So, it would be wrong to suggest that she went there to see the former prime minister,” one of the sources said.

Besides taking a hardline on the private interactions between politicians and US officials, Mr Khan, in his public rallies, also vowed no subservience to the US, while accusing his opponents of toeing Washington’s line.

But Mr Price did not comment on his rhetoric, even though he was asked to do so.

Talking to reporters in Islamabad earlier on Thursday, PTI’s Shireen Mazari confirmed the speculations made in Washington’s diplomatic circles as she also said that Ms Omar had discussed Islamophobia and other related issues in the meeting with Mr Khan at the PTI chairman’s Bani Gala residence.

Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2022