FO confirms no foreign dignitary attending PM’s oath taking ceremony

ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office on Thursday confirmed that no foreign dignitary would attend the oath taking ceremony of the new prime minister.

Foreign Office Spokesman Dr Muhammad Faisal at the weekly press briefing mentioned a tweet by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf announcing a decision that “no dignitary from abroad except a few close friends of Chairman PTI Imran Khan would attend the simple and dignified oath-taking at Aiwan-e-Sadr”.

“The comprehensive PTI tweet explains that no foreign dignitary would attend the oath-taking ceremony, which is going to be a simple event,” the Spokesman said.

The PTI, that had emerged victorious in recent general elections, posted at its official twitter account on Thursday that “oath-taking would be a national event without being ostentatious”.

On recent statements by Chairman PTI and India’s Prime Minsiter Narendra Modi showing intent to improve relations between the two neighbouring states, the Spokesman said, “We hope and expect that it would be taken forward for the resolutions of important issues”.

Dr Faisal mentioned that the Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue between Pakistan and India halted since 2015 and holding of SAARC Summit were the areas that required particular focus by the two governments.

He said Pakistan was ready to host SAARC Summit which was postponed since November 2016.

When sought to comment on the bill passed by US Congress to slash Pakistan’s defence aid to $150 million, the Spokesman confirmed that the Coalition Support Fund had been discontinued.

Dr Faisal said the human rights situation in Indian occupied and Kashmir reflected the unabated use of force, oppression, suppression and mass killings by Indian occupying forces of innocent and defenceless Kashmiris.

He mentioned that during last month, Indian troops in unabated acts of state terrorism, martyred 21 Kashmiris including four young boys and a woman.