ISLAMABAD (AP) — Famous cricketers from around the world have renewed their appeal for the medical treatment of former star player turned politician Imran Khan in a letter to Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
A group of 22 former international cricket captains, including Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev of India and Australian greats Greg Chappell and Ian Chappell, signed a second such letter to the Pakistan prime minister within six months.
The latest appeal comes days after Khan was taken to a government hospital in the capital for a medical examination. The examination was conducted in the presence of one of his sisters, and Khan was then returned to Adiala prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. Doctors declared him 100% medically fit.
However, the group of cricket greats questioned the procedure of Khan’s medical checkup.
“ Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered that Imran Khan be transferred to hospital for examination by a medical board that was to include his own personal physicians and his sister, Dr. Uzma Khan,” the cricketers said in a letter.
“Concerningly, Mr. Khan’s hospital stay lasted only a few hours. He was examined by a state-appointed team rather than the board the court had directed, declared ‘medically fit,’ and returned to Adiala jail before that board could complete its work.”
Khan, 73, led Pakistan to the 1992 Cricket World Cup title and later served as prime minister from 2018 until his ouster in 2022.
The 22 former national team captains said they don't seek to adjudicate on Pakistan’s domestic legal process and had written to the prime minister “not as politicians, but as former colleagues and rivals (of Khan) who share a bond forged on the cricket field.”
In February, 14 former international cricketers expressed their concern over Khan’s health after his family said he had lost about 85% of the vision in his right eye, a claim disputed by the government. Authorities later said his condition was improving following treatment.
Khan’s lawyers and family have also accused the government of defying a court order that required him to be examined at the private Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad. Pakistan’s government rejected the allegations over the weekend, saying Khan was examined by doctors from the private hospital and that he could not be taken to Shifa International for security reasons.
The government said Khan’s supporters had begun gathering outside the private hospital in violation of the court order, which required them to stay away from the medical facility to avoid inconveniencing other patients.
The government has also rejected allegations from Khan’s family that he was being subjected to “cruelty, mental torture, punitive solitary confinement and medical neglect.”
Khan is not being held under a government order but as a “convicted prisoner” serving sentences imposed by courts following judicial proceedings, the Ministry of Information said in a written response to The Associated Press last Friday.
The ministry also rejected allegations that Khan was being held in solitary confinement or denied meaningful contact with his family. It said Khan had received more than 900 visits from family members, lawyers, doctors, political representatives, and other approved visitors since his imprisonment in 2023. He has also been allowed weekly meetings with his wife, as well as telephone and WhatsApp contact with relatives in Pakistan and abroad, the ministry said.
It said his sisters had met with him as recently as Aug. 18 and 19.
See AP’s full cricket coverage here
Police officers remove media in front of the Shifa International Hospital, where imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan will be transferred for a medical examination following Pakistan's Supreme Court order, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan's sister Uzma Khan, left, speaks as Khan's personal physician Faisal Sultan watches during a press conference in Islamabad, Pakistan, Friday, Aug. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)
A medical person enters Shifa International Hospital, where imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan will be transferred for a medical examination following Pakistan's Supreme Court order, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)
REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) — When U.S. President Donald Trump said he wanted a “piece of ice, cold and poorly located,” the people of Iceland had every reason to worry even if he was referring to Greenland.
Their concern was not only that the object of Trump's desire was their nearest big neighbor, but that he repeatedly called it Iceland — four times.
That gaffe, as Trump continued to press for control of Greenland earlier this year, could help push the fiercely independent Iceland and its 400,000 people closer to Europe as voters decide Saturday whether to restart talks to join the European Union.
“We can’t really trust the U.S. anymore,” said Hildur Knútsdóttir, a horror fiction writer who plans to vote in favor of EU membership. “Trump was not joking about Greenland. There was a lot of fear here in Iceland because if he takes Greenland with force, we’re probably going to be next.”
Iceland's decision is whether to continue going it alone successfully and maintain control of precious natural resources like its lucrative and well-managed fisheries, or to strengthen ties with Europe to better insulate the country from geopolitical instability and gain economic benefits such as the more stable euro currency and lower interest rates and inflation.
Iceland, which is a member of NATO, already participates in the EU’s single market through the European Economic Area and is part of the Schengen free-travel zone.
For both sides of the debate, it's really a matter of sovereignty, said Hulda Thorisdottir, a political science professor at the University of Iceland.
Opponents argue that the nation that won its independence from Denmark in 1944 enjoys all the benefits of European integration with no drawbacks. Why surrender that when they're doing so well? she said.
“The independence of Iceland is the most precious resource that we have," said Haraldur Olafsson, a physics professor who is chairman of Heimssýn, a Euroskeptic group that opposes EU membership. “The possibility of making your own law and deciding how things are done is essential.”
EU proponents, however, see it through the lens of a rapidly changing world in which shifting alliances pose a security risk. Being outside the EU makes Iceland vulnerable and that threatens its sovereignty, Thorisdottir said.
Foreign and Defense Minister Thorgerdur Katrín Gunnarsdóttir, who supports joining the EU, said when she asks people from smaller countries such as Ireland, Finland or Luxembourg, whether they feel they've lost their sovereignty, "they look at me like I’m a crazy woman” and say membership has made them stronger.
Prime Minister Kristrun Frostadottir’s center-left coalition government was elected in 2024 on a platform that called for a vote on EU membership.
Icelanders did not vote on the decision to apply for EU membership in 2009, after the country’s debt-burdened banking sector collapsed during the 2008 global financial crisis. Accession talks were suspended in 2013 after a center-right government came to power, and they formally ended in 2015.
The referendum is a first step to potentially joining the 27-nation bloc. Voters will answer a simple yes-or-no question: Should Iceland resume accession negotiations with the European Union?
If voters reject the proposal, the issue would be put to rest. A yes vote would lead to a yearslong negotiating process with the European Commission assessing 35 sets of criteria from financial systems to fisheries, transport networks, agricultural regulations, and freedoms such as speech and religion.
Any agreement would need to be approved by all current EU member nations and then voters in Iceland would have the final say on whether to join.
The descendants of Vikings who settled Iceland have been living off the sea for centuries, and fishing remains part of the country's cultural identity. They fought the so-called Cod Wars with Britain to win control of their fishing grounds in the 1970s.
Their rich North Atlantic fishing grounds have always been a key sticking point to joining the EU over concerns they would have to join the Common Fisheries Policy that would allow Spanish, Dutch and other trawlers into their waters.
Any deal with the EU that doesn't protect Iceland's fishing rights is seen as dead in the water, but Gunnarsdóttir and other officials are confident any deal will offer an exemption for Iceland's fisheries.
“We are a superpower when it comes to fisheries,” she said. “We will not sign any agreement which will not underline our sovereignty and full control of our fisheries.”
Heiðrun Lind Marteinsdóttir, the CEO of Fisheries Iceland, said the seafood trade organization doesn't oppose joining the EU if there is a permanent opt-out from the fisheries policy, but she said that would be unprecedented.
“I think we need to be very realistic on the negotiation process and what we can get out of the negotiations," she said. "To be honest, I think, we’re aiming high.”
Others in the industry are more skeptical that any protection of Icelandic fisheries would be lasting — especially for open water species like herring, capelin and mackerel that migrate between different fishing zones.
“We are going to see European fishing vessels here in Iceland,” Einar Sigurdsson, chairman of Isfelag fishing company, predicted.
The government had planned to hold the vote by next year but moved it up after Trump’s repeated overtures about taking over Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark, a longtime U.S. ally.
The U.S. State Department reassured Iceland officials that Trump meant Greenland during his repeated slip of the tongue at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Gunnarsdóttir, the foreign minister, said.
It didn't help that William Long, the newly arrived U.S. ambassador in Reykjavik, once joked that Iceland would become the 52nd U.S. state and he'd be its governor. He apologized, but the remark prompted thousands of Icelanders to sign a petition urging the prime minister to reject his appointment.
Gunnarsdóttir said Trump's saber-rattling emphasized the importance of the EU's collection of small and large nations standing as one with Greenland and Denmark.
“That is so important for us to see a group of like-minded nations stand together on principles and values," she said. “That is also what I’m looking at when I see the European Union in this volatile world.”
A fishing boat moored at Reykjavik Harbor in Reykjavik, Iceland, Sunday, Aug. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/James Brooks)
An Icelandic flag waves in the wind at Reykjavik Harbor in Reykjavik, Iceland, Sunday, Aug. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/James Brooks)
Workers process fish at Visir's fish processing facility in Grindavik, Iceland, Friday, Aug. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/James Brooks)
A supporter holds a t-shirt reading, "Yes to see", at the opening of the "Yes" campaign's office in Reykjavik, Iceland, Friday, Aug. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/James Brooks)
A man holds a badge reading "See", at the opening of the "Yes" campaign's office in Reykjavik, Iceland, Friday, Aug. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/James Brooks)
