Pak PM Imran Khan mum

Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan repeatedly refused to acknowledge China's repression of Uyghur Muslims during an interview with "Axios on HBO," deflecting to other global human rights issues and citing China's denial of the crackdown in Xinjiang.

He also asked why the world was fixated on Xinjiang while ignoring what India was doing in Kashmir.

The comments have generated debate on Indian and Pakistani social media. The interview with Khan was aired early yesterday morning and immediately started gaining traction as people began discussing his comments.

Khan told the interviewer, Jonathan Swan, that he would "absolutely not" allow the US to have the CIA in Pakistan to conduct cross border counter-terrorism missions against al-Qaeda, the Islamic State group, and the Taliban.

Pakistan's cooperation is seen as critical to US President Joe Biden's plans to completely withdraw US troops from Afghanistan by September.

Khan has always been opposed to the US using Pakistan as a base from which to launch operations, and his comments follow similar remarks made by Pakistani government officials.

But his comments on China, Xinjiang and the treatment of the Uyghur Muslim minority have not been welcomed as enthusiastically.

Reiterating that Pakistan spoke to the Chinese on any issues they had "behind closed doors", Khan asked why what India was doing in Kashmir - which he likened to an "open-air prison camp" - was not an issue, calling it a matter of "hypocrisy". Khan said that Pakistan "respect[s] the way they [China] are and whatever issues we have we speak behind closed doors".

He said that China has been one of the "greatest friends" to Pakistan at its most difficult times, adding that "when we were really struggling and our economy was struggling they came to our rescue".