Pakistan has decided to replace Masood Khan and appoint Additional Foreign Secretary (Middle East and SIFC) Ambassador Rizwan Saeed Sheikh as envoy to the United States, Foreign Office Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said on Friday.
Masood Khan has been serving as ambassador to Washington since February 2022. He was nominated for the post by the then prime minister Imran Khan in November 2021.
In another major diplomatic appointment, the government has decided to appoint senior diplomat Asim Iftikhar, who’s serving as Pakistan’s ambassador in France, as its additional permanent representative to the UN, the spokesperson said.
She said Iftikhar will, at a suitable time, assume the office of the permanent representative, which is currently held by Munir Akram. Akram assumed this position on November 1, 2019.
The spokesperson said the appointments were being cogitated for several weeks and the announcement regarding the appointments was a normal procedure.
Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said that Resolution 901 adopted by the US House of Representatives was an “unsolicited interference” in Pakistan’s domestic affairs which was “neither welcome nor acceptable”.
She said that the resolution clearly stemmed from an inadequate and erroneous understanding of political and electoral process of Pakistan. “It is also an unsolicited interference in Pakistan’s domestic affairs.
