FO doesn’t want cable contents made public

ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office believes making contents of an ambassador's coded message would harm the national interest.

A senior official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, requesting anonymity, told Geo News: “The Foreign Office thinks overwhelmingly that foreign secretary shouldn't make public the contents of the (coded) telegram dated March 7.”

"The ambassadors should be encouraged to share their assessments based on their interactions with their interlocutors of the host countries, and any step contrary to this would be detrimental to the national interest," the official pointed out.

"This is practiced all over the world. Nowhere in the world, an ambassador’s cable is ever released for political purposes. There is not a single example of this,” he added. Use of messages about diplomatic interactions would inhibit the host countries' officials from interacting with their Pakistani counterparts whose job is to keep their headquarters updated with information relevant to their country.