SM Qureshi dropped as Pakistan's foreign minister

SM Qureshi dropped as Pakistan's foreign minister

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's president on Friday swore cabinet ministers into office in the first phase of a government reshuffle designed to reduce the size of the cabinet and curb public spending.

SM Qureshi has been dropped as Pakistan's foreign minister.

Struggling from unprecedented flooding last year that caused damages of $9.7 billion, the government is under huge international pressure to introduce economic reforms and meet International Monetary Fund targets agreed in a 2008 bailout package.

Each minister swore to undertake their duties "honestly" and "faithfully in accordance with the constitution" and "always in the interest of the sovereignty, integrity, solidarity, well-being and prosperity of Pakistan".

Most of the ministers whom President Asif Ali Zardari swore in on Friday were members of his Pakistan People's Party (PPP).

Government officials said ministers from other parties in the fractious coalition would take office later.

A reduction in the size of the cabinet is required under the 18th amendment to the constitution, which stipulates it should be no larger than 11 percent of parliament, which would be a maximum of 49 members.

There were more than 50 ministers in the cabinet that resigned on Wednesday.

Read more: SM Qureshi dropped as Pakistan's foreign minister - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/w...#ixzz1Deo8goBB

Great news!! I hated this guy's way of response during the last peace talks...

here we bid goodbye!

Does it make any difference vis-a-vis Pakistan's foreign policy w.r.t India OR US, or it's internal policies w.r.t the terrorist groups it has created OR have nurtured over the years? No. This is a hogwash to keep aid from the International Monetary Fund coming.
Nonetheless, good riddance! Qureshi was arrogant and self goaded.

could it be an attempt by civilian government to stop army interference in foreign affairs? Qureshi seemed to toe hawkish line and was following army instructions instead of civilian government .

/\/\/\ Any attempt by the Civilian Government in Pakistan to sideline the PA will be checkmated even before the Government dreams of it. All this is done with the blessings of the PA.

Agree to the fact that it will be army which will be calling the shots in pakistan . But way he was reacted in our last foreign minister level meeting was not mature and it could have been handled in better manner . There are various ways to make a meeting failure instead of shouting loud like and illiterate Talibani. Have you ever seen any Foreign minister shouting like a fool and that too in front of press?

Shash, please check post #4, last line.
Btw, that act by Qureshi in the Foreign Minister's meeting was scripted by the PA in consultation with the ISI. It had to had overtures.

Arm will be calling shots in Pakistan but their wishes should be followed in spirit not in words. There are many more decent ways to scuttle a meeting instead of shouting like a mad d** in front of camera. I think India has also shown some reservations against qureshi and there could be some other back channel pressures which we will never know. A foreign minister openly acting on order of Army and ISI is not at all good thing for Pakistani government and they are trying to show that who he should be loyal to .

They got sexy foriegn minister Hina Rabbani Khar . I dont mind being a Indian foreign minister. krishna ki lottery nikal gayi lolll. jokes apart i have heart she is a big dumb.Earlier she was in finance ministry.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ee-Rq2WZjP...ni_khar283.jpg

Well nothing bad for quershi. he made his money. He is american citizen and will move to US. His son is getting training under senator John Kerry. Wo kerry lugar wala..

This is a useful understanding of how politics works:


It’s not a rumour, Americans did get Qureshi’s scalp


ISLAMABAD: When powerful men meet to discuss explosive issues, things can change in a big way. And that is precisely what happened after a highly secretive and immensely important meeting at the Presidency a few days back. The subject, not unexpectedly, being the fate of American killer Raymond Davis and that of Pakistan-US relations. Little did anyone know at the time that the huddle would instead end up deciding the fate of Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

The meeting, convened by the president was attended by Prime Minister Gilani, Babar Awan, Rehman Malik, Shah Mehmood Qureshi and the DG ISI Gen Shuja Pasha. The president was given an exhaustive overview of the entire situation but quite early in the meeting it became evident that two of the men were standing on the wrong side of the prevalent dominant wisdom and desire of somehow finding a way to retrospectively cough up diplomatic immunity for Davis and to just wish away all the four deaths and the lingering crisis. But since one of the ‘erring’ two dared not be arbitrarily fired, poor Qureshi’s fate stood sealed.

Extreme pressure was exerted in the meeting on the former foreign minister to renege from his earlier stance and simply tell the court that the Foreign Office was in consonance with the American interpretation of Davis being a genuine diplomat and enjoying full immunity under Vienna Convention 1961. Facts be damned. According to highly reliable sources, interior ministry’s immense resources were also offered to cause any necessary change of documentation or any exceptional service warranted under these exceptional circumstances.

An adamant Qureshi, who had strongly argued the case that Raymond did not enjoy unlimited diplomatic immunity under law, flatly refused and even said that if need be, he’d rather resign than become an accessory to multiple murder. The meeting ended on a rather unsavoury and unexpected note. It was a surprising outcome for all the others because Qureshi had always been perceived, and even pilloried by the media, as being an American lackey and was not expected to dig in his heels over an issue so vital for the US administration.

But Qureshi’s latest run in with the Americans did not begin or end inside the Presidency. It had actually begun much earlier on January 28, a day after the deadly Raymond Davis incident in Lahore. He was in Karachi when he first received a call from US Ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter and then had a conversation with US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. Munter requested him for immediate councillor access to Davis and his immediate handover to US Consulate authorities. Qureshi asked Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir to talk to Munter and while authorising immediate councillor access to Davis made it clear to the foreign secretary that the matter of release would only be decided by the court as the legal process had already been kicked into motion in Punjab. Then came Hillary’s call.

An understandably perturbed Hillary wanted the immediate handover of Davis and insisted that Pakistan was violating the Vienna Convention by the illegal incarceration of a “US diplomat”. Confirming the contents of that conversation to The News, Shah Mehmood said that he had patiently explained to Hillary that while he understood her anxiety she too had to understand the highly emotive and sensitive nature of the incident. And also that since the judicial process had been kick-started in Lahore, the Foreign Office and the US had little option but to submit to the due process of law. Anyway, the two decided to discuss the matter on the sidelines of the then forthcoming Munich Security Conference, and the line went silent.

Since then, Ambassador Munter and other senior embassy officials remained busy with engaging Pakistani authorities and the Foreign Office, blowing hot or cold, depending upon the level of their own frustration and the pressure coming their way from Washington. A few days prior to the Munich Conference, Qureshi received a call from Ambassador Munter who said that he had been directed to convey the message that unless Qureshi signed the diplomatic immunity paper prior to the conference, the scheduled meeting between him and Hillary would stand cancelled. The message was starkly clear a la George Bush: You are either with us or against us. So be it, Qureshi is reported to have told the ambassador and even cancelled his trip altogether. The chief of the army staff went instead to Munich and that is an appointment that even the US secretary of state cannot cancel, Davis or no Davis.

Once Qureshi ignored the latest Hillary communique, the Americans stopped talking to him altogether because it had now become evident that Qureshi was not going to budge on his stance of Davis not being eligible for full diplomatic immunity. Qureshi was no longer a welcome dinner guest and neither could he be allowed to remain in office. The last thing Washington can afford is his having a Pakistani foreign minister with a reawakened conscience.

According to highly reliable sources, the next claimed scalp may be that of the equally intransigent (from American perspective), Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir who is now the only remaining top level hurdle in the apprehended shameless handover of Davis by a compromised political leadership. The foreign secretary is also of the considered firm view that Davis does not qualify for full immunity. And there are legitimate causes for this argument, which were further exposed by glaring inconsistencies in the forever changing US stance on the issue.

Owing to the paucity of space, irrefutable arguments proving Davis’ ineligibility are not being reproduced here and also because a lot has already been written on the legal aspects of the subject, including the highlighted fact that in the initial reaction by US authorities, Raymond Davis was identified as merely an “employee” of the US Consulate in Lahore, but never as a diplomat. He was referred to as an employee and not a consulate general official. “It was a simple clerical error” was the incredulous justification offered by two senior members of the Islamabad embassy in an off-the-record conversation with the scribe. But it gets even better.

A lot is being made by the Americans and their interlocutors of the January 20, 2010 communication of the Islamabad embassy wherein the FO had been asked for the issuance of a non-diplomatic identity card for Davis. It is being argued that this communication clearly identifies Raymond Davis as being administrative and technical staff of Islamabad embassy and therefore automatically eligible for diplomatic immunity. But this is only half the story.

Certain discrepancies in 2010 had already caused the Foreign Office to seek clarifications. In Sept 2009, the US State Department had originally identified him as technical advisor (contractor) going on “official business” while applying for his visa. Later he was attached to US Consulate Lahore as an employee. So when his name popped up again in January 2010, identifying him as being attached with the US Embassy Islamabad, the FO wanted answers to some very pertinent questions. The relevant FO officials repeatedly asked the US embassy to provide the details of Davis’ new responsibilities along with those of his past postings. When weeks had passed with the embassy avoiding a categorical clarification on this count, the FO finally sent a formal Note Verbale to the US embassy on July 8, 2010. It bore ref no: P(1-A)/2009-ID(USA). This note pertained to a total of ten Americans about whom similar details were being sought from the embassy but no response had been forthcoming from the US end. Davis was listed as Note No:252/HR. When FO authorities were asked about the presence of 2009 in the reference number of the note verbale otherwise sent on July 8, 2010, they clarified that it was perfectly in accordance with their internal filing sequence and did not reflect any anomaly.

Unable to cover this critical gap in their argument to secure Davis’ release on the afterthought alibi of diplomatic immunity, the US embassy has adopted the rather incredulous argument of denying outright the existence of this critical correspondence. The FO has been told at the highest level that the US embassy never received this Note Verbale. The two senior functionaries stuck to the denial mantra when asked by The News about the embassy’s refusal to divulge the real assignments and other details of Davis and nine others. They insisted that all the embassy records had been thoroughly checked but there was no evidence of the cited note verbale ever being received. When they were told that the July 8 note was present in FO records and its existence and its having been sent to US embassy was recorded in more than one place and constituted a process that could not be tampered with within hours of an event taking place, the duo took the reference number of the ‘missing note’ to ostensibly try locating it from their records. This raises an interesting question: if they still needed the reference number at this stage, then how did they even check their records earlier?

Can you name a single other incidence where prior to this particular note verbale or since, any note verbale sent by FO to the US embassy has ever gone missing? the two functionaries were asked. Not surprisingly, the duo could not cite a single such incidence.

Interesting coincidence one must say, where the entire US administration makes critical clerical errors which only expose Davis as being a non-diplomat. Another interesting coincidence again, when only one specific official communication out of hundreds of similar exchanges goes missing, and which once again stood to expose Raymond Davis for being anything but a legitimate diplomat on a legitimate diplomatic assignment.


http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrin...3&dt=2/12/2011

Never liked him one bit. I Remember how he sent veiled threats of war post 26/11 after there were talks of strikes on terror camps.

Did not like him a bit.

He always acted too cleverer by half.

He always emphasised each word as if it hung heavy on this tongue.

To be honest, I think he was good for his country. A fairly upright man, whose principles were shattered by the leadership he placed his trust in. That is brought out in the story, in the above post.

I always thought him to be in the U.S.'s boots, though. At least, initially. Until a few days ago, when I discovered he was quite the principled guy. For any foreign policy in a region as significant and strategic as this, I would've imagined they would start with the foreign minister of a 'key ally'.

Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see who his replacement is. There are Foreign Minister-level talks coming up in July, I think. Our own Foreign Affairs Minister, SM Krishna, has his long overdue.

as i understand what is being played out here, credit to najam sethi.

the american diplomat was infact a diplomat but the punjab government (read pml-n/nawaz shrief) looking at the public sentiment wanted to whip this issue up to his benefit and put the zardari government in a tight spot.

army is keeping quite but behind doors wants the diplomat to be released.

sm qureshi seizing an opportunity jumped into the fray and wanted to act as the savior of national self esteem. he over did it, not to the linking of the army (who till now was taking his orders from the army) and the US, and the two colluded along with zardari and co (who are being made the scape goat) and have got the rid of this chap.

the coup of sorts on part of qureshi could have been with an intent to bargain PM's position in the process.