ISLAMABAD, Feb 11: The Foreign Office on Saturday said it would look into the authenticity of media reports claiming that US security personnel had frisked members of the prime minister’s entourage at the behest of a Pakistani army general.
“We will look into it to determine what exactly happened and see whether the State Department’s version is correct,” was the measured response of Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam when her attention was drawn to news reports quoting unnamed US State Department officials as saying it was on the “specific request” by a Pakistani general that the security searches were conducted.
There was no outright denial of these reports by the spokesperson who refused to go into the specifics of at what stage was the inquiry into the matter.
She was non-committal on the question of whether the findings would be made public and left it at: “We will see.”
Asked if the US had officially raised this issue with the Foreign Office, her response was that it had not. On whether Pakistan had approached the State Department in this regard, she said there was no need for that.
Asked if the Foreign Office had approached the Pakistan embassy in Washington to ascertain facts of the matter, she did not give a direct answer and merely said: “We are in touch with our embassy 24 hours a day, not especially for this.”
According to reports published in a section of the Press on Saturday the security searches at the JFK airport in New York were ordered by a Pakistani general accompanying the PM.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that the unidentified military man said to be behind the controversial security searches may have been the defence attaché at the Pakistan embassy in Washington. A brigadier not a general.
