The Hindu : Front Page : “Pakistan Foreign Secretary shown the door”

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Monday, Apr 28, 2008
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“Pakistan Foreign Secretary shown the door”

Nirupama Subramanian

He opposed the demand for United Nations’ probe into Benazir’s killing: report

Ambassador to China Salman Bashir replaces
Riaz Mohammed Khan
Khan was involved with composite dialogue process with India since 2004

ISLAMABAD: A new Foreign Secretary will represent Pakistan at scheduled talks with India in May after Riaz Mohammed Khan’s sudden exit on Friday, linked to his opposition to an international investigation into Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.

Mr. Khan was to step down in September this year, but he had requested to be relieved after the India-Pakistan talks on the composite dialogue process from May 19-21.

Highly respected

Mr. Khan, highly respected in the Foreign Ministry for the bandwidth of his experience and for his level-headed leadership, was involved with the composite dialogue process since 2004.

His personal rapport with officials on the Indian side ensured that the process was conducted with civility even through the worst of times, and he was expected to guide the new government into the fifth round of talks before making way for a successor.

But on Friday, in the middle of an important visit by the Chinese Foreign Minister, Mr. Khan suddenly found himself replaced with “immediate effect” by Salman Bashir, at present Ambassador to China.

As his nominated successor is reported to have been caught as much by surprise as Mr. Khan, and is expected to arrive from Beijing only in the middle of June, the government has appointed Acting Special Secretary Abdul Moiz Bokhari as acting Foreign Secretary.

The News reported on Sunday that the unceremonious exit of Mr. Khan was connected to his forthright opposition to a United Nations-sponsored international investigation into Benazir’s killing.

Mr. Khan is said to have objected to such a probe on the ground that it could set a precedent and open a Pandora’s box of diplomatic complications for Pakistan in the future.

The Foreign Ministry is reportedly concerned that a U.N. investigation could send out the message that the Pakistan government has no faith in its own investigative and legal mechanisms.

Other analysts have also pointed out that while it was one thing for the Pakistan People’s Party, which Bhutto headed, to have expressed its lack of trust in a government investigation while it was in Opposition, its continued insistence on an international probe after coming to power was akin to declaring no confidence in its own government.

Call for protest

Mushahid Hussain Syed, Secretary-General of the defeated Pakistan Muslim League (Q), compared the reported “sacking” of Mr. Khan to the removal of the former Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary, and said the nation must protest the action against the country’s top-most diplomat.

Mr. Syed defended the former Foreign Secretary’s assessment of the impact of a U.N. investigation into the Benazir’s killing.

“Let’s not open the door to an international investigation. The U.N. could appoint anyone to head. What if they appointed an Indian or an Israeli,” he asked at a press conference in Lahore.

But in an interview to a private television channel last week, PPP leader Asif Zardari was emphatic that there must be an international probe into his wife’s assassination. He poured scorn on the country’s permanent representative to the U.N. Munir Akram and unnamed others for opposing such an investigation.

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