“It appears Pakistan is being softened up to play a role which is against its national and strategic interests,” a press statement from Rabbani said.

He added that the government was ‘dragging its feet’ on the IMF deal and foreign countries except China had declined to help Pakistan.

The peope have a right to know, the senator said, if Pakistan’s nuclear assets or its relationship with China is under threat.

“Or are we being called up to play a role in the region which will facilitate the military presence of an Imperialist power?”

He also said that the government had not brought the matter of resurgence of terror attacks by TTP to the parliament for discussion.

“It seems be it PTI or present governments, [they] want azadi from Parliament and the Constitution 1973.”

The statement comes almost a month after an IMF delegation left Pakistan, seeming with an agreement on most key matters. However, the IMF bailout tranche, desperately needed by Pakistan to bosst its historically low reserves have not materialised. Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has repeatedly said that a deal is ‘close’.

China also recently made a statement in which it said that the policies of a particular western country, presumably a reference to the US, were behind the problems faced by developing economies such as Pakistan.