The CNN India refusal
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The CNN India refusal is John Kiriakou's account, given on 19 November 2025, of declining yet another Indian television interview, and of why he now declines them as a rule.

The request

The question that prompted it came from a viewer asking about Pakistan's new field marshal, Imran Khan's imprisonment, and the state of Pakistani,American relations. Kiriakou's answer opened with a refusal rather than an assessment.

"You know, I turned down another interview this morning from CNN India, and they were mad. This time they sent five questions. They were like, 'Answer our questions.' And I said, 'You guys, what part of no do you not understand?'"

The reason

The explanation he gave them, and repeated on air, concerns editing rather than politics. "Every time I answer a question about Pakistan or India, you guys make it a banner headline with three exclamation points. You take it completely out of context, and then I get a dozen death threats."

The pattern is documented elsewhere in the corpus: a November 2025 interview in which Kiriakou observed that India would prevail over Pakistan in a conventional conflict produced a formal demand for an apology from Khan's party, and the coverage that followed was not, on his account, a fair rendering of what he had said.

Answering anyway

Having refused the interview, he then answered the viewer's question, and flagged the cost of doing so before he did. "So the answer is no. But I will say this, and I'll probably get threats for this too."

What followed was his standing assessment of Pakistani corruption and the limits it places on Pakistani democracy, together with his view that Khan should not be in prison. That assessment is treated separately in the article on Pakistani corruption.

Why the refusal is characteristic

Kiriakou has built a post-agency career on availability: he appears on programmes of every ideological description, takes viewer questions live five days a week, and rarely declines a subject. The Indian broadcasters are one of the few standing exceptions, and the exception is not about the subject matter, he discusses South Asia constantly, but about a specific editorial practice he believes converts nuanced answers into inflammatory headlines aimed at an audience primed to react.

The refusal, in other words, is a media criticism delivered by withdrawal rather than by argument. He does not accuse the outlets of inventing quotes; he accuses them of framing accurate ones so that they endanger him.

See also

- Imran Khan
- The 2025 India,Pakistan clash assessment
- India
- Pakistani Corruption And Democracy
