NA speaker forms Parliamentary Friendship Groups

ISLAMABAD: National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaisar has paced up the initiative of parliamentary diplomacy with the formation of Parliamentary Friendship Groups and stressed the need to expand cooperation and contacts with the parliaments across the globe through the platform.

The process of enrollment of members for the Parliamentary Friendship Groups began with the passage of a resolution by the National Assembly of Pakistan on September 24, 2018 through which 91 Parliamentary Friendship Groups were reactivated. The National Assembly Speaker, in his capacity as ex-officio President of these Parliamentary Friendship Groups, has appointed conveners from among the members of these groups to look after the day-to-day business of the Forums.

The Parliamentary Friendship Groups are not only meant to foster coordination with the parliaments of the 91 friendly countries but also to expand the scope of cooperation from parliament-to-parliament interaction to promote people-to-people contacts.

With the objective of the parliamentary diplomacy in mind, the National Assembly Speaker has designated 12 more Conveners of the Parliamentary Friendship Groups bringing the total number of Conveners to 35. The Conveners of the remaining 56 PFGs will be appointed once the groups complete required quorum.

List of Conveners for Parliamentary Friendship Groups in the 15th National Assembly of the Pakistan as follows, Sahibzada Sibghatullah as a convener for Azerbaijan, Mehboob Shah for Myanmar, Prince Muhammad Nawaz Allai for Qatar, Malik Anwar Taj Advocate for Mauritius, Muhammad Iqbal Afridi for Nepal and Bhutan, Nawabzada Iftikhar Ahmed Khan Babar for Kuwait, Mir Amer Ali Khan Magsi for Portugal, Raza Rabani Khar for Malaysia, Syed Ghulam Mustafa Shah for Morocco, Zulfiqar Sattar Bachani for Kenya, Ms Shaista Pervaiz for Maldives and Miss Shagufta Jumani for Nigeria.

Earlier, the National Assembly Speaker nominated 23 Conveners of different PFGs which were Muhammad Bashir Khan (Afghanistan), Ali Zahid (Algeria), Arbab Amir Ayub (Argentina), Ms Marriyum Aurangzeb (Australia), Muhammad Aslam Bhootani (India), Agha Hassan Baloch (Bahrain), Chaudhary Mahmood Bashir Virk (Bangladesh), Muhammad Yaqoob Shaikh (Belarus), Sher Ali Arbab (Belgium), Mian Riaz Hussain Pirzada (Brazil), Sajid Khan (Brunei Darussalam), Mukhdoom Syed Samiul Hassan Gillani (Bulgaria), Ms Maleeka Bokhari (Chile), Noor Alam Khan (China), Riaz Fatyana (Cuba), Rao Muhammad Ajmal Khan (Denmark), Qaiser Ahmed Sheikh (DPR Korea), Nasir Khan Musa Zai (Egypt), Ms Shandana Gulzar Khan (European Parliament), Amjid Ali Khan (France), Sardar Ayaz Sadiq (Germany), Ms Nusrat Wahid (Greece) and Faiz Ullah (Iran).