The Foreign Office on Friday flatly rejected suggestions that Islamabad had written to Abu Dhabi to expel slain journalist Arshad Sharif from the Gulf country and force him to go to the African nation of Kenya, where he eventually died last weekend. I was killed.
During his weekly briefing, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Asim Iftikhar answered questions about Islamabad’s role in forcing the journalist to go to Africa.
“It is completely baseless; there is no truth in it. And even this matter is not related to the Ministry of External Affairs.
Iftikhar categorically denied the existence of a letter to his knowledge, which the Pakistani government had sent to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government to deport Sharif.
He said that the Foreign Office has seen such reports, false information is also being spread on social media, while some people even went so far as to say that there was a letter, and it was allegedly signed by Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. .
He further said that this is a very serious matter due to which a detailed investigation is required.
“Nothing can be out of the box. This is not the case.”
Iftikhar added that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had already spoken to the Kenyan President about the tragedy and the Kenyan President had very kindly agreed to the request.
Subsequently, a two-man team, whose mandate is to find out the facts surrounding the murder, leaves for Kenya.
“We are in touch with the Kenyan authorities at various levels here in Islamabad and Nairobi to facilitate this visit, and we look forward to full cooperation and coordination to facilitate the work of this team,” he said. “
Besides, the spokesperson of the Foreign Office clearly rejected India’s baseless propaganda against Pakistan in the meeting of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) held in Mumbai.
“It is regrettable that India chose to misuse an important committee of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to mislead the international community about Pakistan’s role against global terrorism.
The Foreign Office said in a statement that India’s defamatory actions undermine the objectives and mandate of the committee and are condemnable.
He said that the Indian government should be held accountable for its efforts to unfairly prolong the legal proceedings in the Mumbai case.
He said, “India’s ill-advised intervention in today’s CTC meeting in Mumbai reaffirms Pakistan’s long-standing fears that India is only interested in playing politics at international counter-terrorism forums to discredit Pakistan.” “
