Pakistan rejects Intercept story alleging weapons sale to Ukraine for securing IMF bailout package

Foreign Office terms Intercept story as fabricated, baseless

ISLAMABAD (APP) - Pakistan on Monday rejected a news story by The Intercept, an online American nonprofit news organisation, alleging sale of Pakistani weapons to Ukraine to get the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout package for Pakistan.

Responding to media queries about the news item, Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch termed the story as baseless and fabricated.

She said: “the IMF Standby Arrangement for Pakistan was successfully negotiated between Pakistan and the IMF to implement difficult, but essential economic reforms. Giving any other colour to these negotiations is disingenuous”.

“Pakistan maintains a policy of strict neutrality in the dispute between Ukraine and Russia and in that context, does not provide any arms and ammunition to them. Pakistan’s defense exports are always accompanied with strict end user requirements”, added the spokesperson.

The Intercept news story alleges that “secret pakistani arms sales to the US helped to facilitate a controversial bailout from the International Monetary Fund earlier this year, according to two sources with knowledge of the arrangement, with confirmation from internal Pakistani and American government documents. The arms sales were made for the purpose of supplying the Ukrainian military — marking Pakistani involvement in a conflict it had faced US pressure to take sides on.”