Foreign service officers miffed at Imran's jab

Anger has been building among the foreign service officers over Prime Minister Imran Khan's comments accusing them of harbouring 'colonial mindset' and 'callousness' in dealing with the expatriate community.

Prime Minister Khan had, while speaking to envoys posted in 19 countries through video conferencing on Wednesday, said that he had noticed "shocking callousness" of Pakistani diplomats posted overseas after a few recent incidents involving the expatriates.

He was in particular critical of the missions in Saudi Arabia and United

Arab Emirates, which host the largest Pakistani communities overseas, but the way the comments were delivered made it look like a censure of the entire foreign service.

"Indifferent attitude is unforgivable, unacceptable," Mr Khan had said, telling the officers to give up their 'colonial mindset' and extend special treatment to the expatriate communities.

Mr Khan's comments came after the government suspended outgoing envoy to Saudi Arabia Raja Ejaz and recalled six other diplomats from Riyadh for not properly serving the community and inefficiency.

The prime minister's comments led to angst, and demoralisation among the officers of the foreign service. To quote the words of one officer, the anger over the "caustic remarks" is very intense and the comments "have made even the reticent ones to speak up".

There is no denying that overseas communities have faced problems at the embassies, but in conversation with Dawn, officers contended that prime minister's own presentation of the issues displayed his lack of understanding of the issues and that he solely relied on complaints while making the allegations instead of first studying the issue.

Although serving officers, because of the official discipline, could not publicly respond, former foreign secretaries took the lead in denouncing the premier's comments on social media.

Former foreign secretary Tehmina Janjua wrote on Twitter: "Deeply dismayed at the unwarranted criticism of the Foreign Ministry. There seems to be woefully inadequate understanding of Embassies' consular work, the acute resource constraints, and the role of multiple departments which [are] not under the control of Ambassadors."

Another former foreign secretary Salman Bashir explained on Twitter: "Usual services to the community are essentially in the domain of other departments that handle passports, nicop [National Identity Card for Overseas Pakistanis], consular attestation etc."