Pakistan-US communication halted after cipher issue played up: FIA inquiry

ISLAMABAD: The relationship between Pakistan and the United States came to a standstill after Imran Khan waved a piece of paper portraying it as a copy of a cipher in his speech on March 27 last year to allege that America was involved in ousting him from power through a no-confidence motion of his political opponent.

Interviews conducted by the FIA of relevant officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister’s Office suggest that at one point, there was literally no communication between the countries. “They stopped talking with us,” an official privy to the investigation said with reference to the United States, basing his information on the statements recorded by different diplomats.

After Khan waved a paper in his March 27 jalsa organized on the Parade Ground, the US asked Pakistan in writing to share the purported cipher being shown by the-then PM. The US officials agitated at this and wondered if privileged communication made its way to public discourse, then there wouldn’t be a candid conversation anymore, according to one statement recorded by the FIA. Incidentally, Khan by the time had not directly named the US but the words started coming out from his close circles.

Alarmed at this development, MoFA issued an advisory note for PM Khan and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi. In the note, the ministry underscored the sanctity of privileged communication held between the diplomats of the two countries and repercussions of its use for political purposes. It cautioned against playing with the cipher while flagging concerns that it would likely have serious implications for the Pak-US relationship.

However, the note failed to change the policy at the leadership level. Instead, MoFA was asked to issue a demarche to the US over alleged political interference. The decision in this regard was taken in a hurriedly-convened National Security Council meeting held on March 31 and the demarche was issued afterwards.

Going by this timeline of events, the US agitation over cipher preceded the issuance of demarche. There are as many as four ‘star witnesses’ in the cipher case: Azam Khan (PM Khan’s principal secretary), Asad Majeed (then Pak Ambassador to the US), Sohail Mehmood (then Foreign Secretary) and Faisal Tirmzi (then Additional Secretary in MoFA dealing with US related matters).

An FIA official said that none of them was coerced into making a statement divorced from reality. “We asked each of them to record whatever they consider is a true statement of facts,” according to the FIA official.

The FIA has not included Asad Umar in the final challan. When asked, the official said he didn’t have any role other than becoming part of a phone call (leaked later on) in which Khan was suggesting how to play with the cipher. Shah Mehmood Qureshi has been implicated in abetting in crime whereas Khan is the mastermind. Khan could face a jail sentence of up to 14 years in this case.