{"id":33574,"date":"2019-02-28T12:25:55","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T12:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=33574"},"modified":"2019-02-28T12:25:55","modified_gmt":"2019-02-28T12:25:55","slug":"pakistan-to-release-captured-indian-pilot-as-peace-gesture-prime-minister-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=33574","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan to release captured Indian pilot as &#8216;peace gesture,&#8217; Prime Minister says"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"40.3903345725\">\n<div readability=\"8\">\n<div readability=\"11\">\n<p>Pakistani cricket star-turned-politician and head of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan gestures as he delivers a speech during a political campaign rally, in Islamabad, on July 21, 2018.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"b2e512cf\">Pakistani cricket star-turned-politician and head of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan gestures as he delivers a speech during a political campaign rally, in Islamabad, on July 21, 2018.<span><span>WAKIL KOHSAR\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/span><\/span><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p>During Pakistan\u2019s general election last year, Imran Khan was dismissed by detractors as a political lightweight and foreign policy novice who relied on populism and deference to the country\u2019s influential military for support.<\/p>\n<p>Now, just over six months into his role as Prime Minister, those claims are being tested as Khan finds his country closer to war with its nuclear-armed neighbor, India, than at any point in the past 20 years.<\/p>\n<p>Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert at the US-based Wilson Center, said the crisis will likely give Khan\u2019s popularity a boost.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn Pakistan there\u2019s nothing like aggression from India to rally the people,\u201d he told CNN. \u201cThe fact that Pakistan had India come into the country to stage these airstrikes, it\u2019s an embarrassment for the military. But the entire country will rally round Imran Kahn to support him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, Kugelman said this is a political test for Khan, who formed his own party 23 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe certainly is a neophyte, he has no experience as a national leader, he\u2019s been a politician for a number of years but hasn\u2019t been in a position of national power,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p><em>Read more analysis from\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2019\/02\/28\/asia\/imran-khan-india-pakistan-crisis-intl\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>CNN&#8217;s Euan McKirdy here.<\/em><\/a><em> <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pakistani cricket star-turned-politician and head of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan gestures as he delivers a speech during a political campaign rally, in Islamabad, on July 21, 2018. Pakistani cricket star-turned-politician and head of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan gestures as he delivers a speech during a political campaign rally, in Islamabad, on&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":33575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}