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Murtaza Haider is a professor of management at Ryerson University and a former Islamabad-based reporter.

A constitutional crisis has erupted in Pakistan, throwing the country’s poor relations with the United States into stark relief.

After a coalition of opposition parties initiated a no-confidence vote to remove Prime Minister Imran Khan from office, Mr. Khan claimed that his government had received “threats from abroad.” He alleged that a memo documenting the minutes of a meeting between Pakistan’s former ambassador in Washington, D.C., and U.S. diplomats revealed a “foreign conspiracy” warning of consequences if Mr. Khan were not ousted by the vote, adding that the opposition had colluded with the U.S. government to depose him. (The White House and the U.S. State Department have said there is “no truth” to the allegations.)

On April 3, the deputy speaker from Mr. Khan’s ruling party proceeded to dismiss the no-confidence motion before it could be voted on, claiming that the foreign interference Mr. Khan alleged would make the vote unconstitutional. Mr. Khan then advised President Arif Alvi to dissolve the National Assembly, with an eye toward snap elections, even though the country’s constitution forbids a prime minister “against whom a notice of a resolution for a vote of no-confidence has been given in the National Assembly but has not been voted upon” from requesting dissolution. But on April 7, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ruled that the deputy speaker had illegally spiked the vote, which Mr. Khan will now have to face again on Saturday.

Strangely, through all this, the government has not appeared to have even investigated these allegations of a conspiracy. A review of official statements released by the government after Mr. Khan levied his accusations suggests that Pakistan has only been seeking co-operation with the United States.

Mr. Khan made no mention of a conspiracy in his March advice to Pakistan’s recently confirmed ambassador to the U.S., Masood Khan, who reportedly held a series of meetings with Pakistan’s civil and military establishment before assuming his responsibilities in Washington later that month. Instead, at a meeting that reportedly took place at least a week after the alleged memo was received at the Foreign Office, the Prime Minister told the ambassador-designate that “Pakistan-U.S. relations were based on partnership and shared goals” and urged him to strengthen bilateral relations, “particularly for enhancement of trade, investment and public diplomacy.”

(The new ambassador has himself become a hot-button concern in Washington: Three U.S. members of Congress have asked the Attorney-General to launch a probe into allegations that the envoy has links with terrorist and Islamist groups.)

There had been some recent hope for a bilateral relationship. The Trump administration declined to replace the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan when David Hale left the post in 2018, but in October, 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden nominated Donald Blome to the position. The vacancy may not have been an intentional snub by the U.S. government, but it is noteworthy that Mr. Khan’s three years in government have gone by without an ambassador in Islamabad representing one of Pakistan’s largest trading partners.

After the U.S. Senate confirmed Mr. Blome, the State Department added that “partnership with Pakistan is key to progress on regional security, trade and investment, the climate crisis and human rights,” signalling a keenness to engage Pakistan on various issues, including climate change, which poses a formidable challenge to the resource-constrained country.

But now, Mr. Khan’s unsubstantiated allegations that the U.S. sought to destabilize his government threaten to jeopardize a relationship that both sides seem interested in rekindling. These efforts had already been hampered by Pakistan’s refusal in 2021 to host military bases for U.S. counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan – and by Mr. Khan’s visit to the Kremlin on the same day that Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine.

While the Supreme Court has ruled to restore the vote of no-confidence, the memo that Mr. Khan claims mentioned an alleged foreign conspiracy should still be disclosed to ascertain its authenticity. The leaders of the opposition parties whom Mr. Khan has directly accused of colluding with foreign governments must also approach the courts to clear their names. They will be entitled to see the evidence against them.

Otherwise, it is impossible to assess the credibility of the allegations about the memo, or Mr. Khan’s motives. And given the embattled leader’s efforts to stay in power, people in Pakistan should be concerned about how Mr. Khan may have used it to stir anti-American hysteria for electoral gains. That’s especially troubling, given that he may have threatened all Pakistanis’ economic and social prospects by doing so.

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