ISLAMABAD, Oct 30: Ten Iraqi foreign service officers arrived here last week to attend the first-ever ‘specialized diplomatic course for Iraq’ at the Pakistan Foreign Service Academy (FSA) in Islamabad, Dawn has learnt.

Significantly, this becomes the first and the largest group of Iraqi diplomats to receive training in Pakistan after the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime six months back.

The request for the course was made under the US-appointed Iraq’s provisional government, formed as a result of America-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.

“The Iraqi foreign ministry put the request to Pakistan’s Charge d’ Affairs in Baghdad about two months back and it matured through diplomatic channels,” a senior official told Dawn on Thursday.

After the fall of Saddam the status of Iraqi embassy in Islamabad has changed to the ‘Iraqi liaison office’ and it is headed by a second secretary.

The 10 Iraqis, five men and five women, participating in the exclusively designed course are middle and junior level officers who have recently joined the foreign service.

The two-month specialized course being offered to the Iraqis covers international politics, international economics, international law, international organizations and other subjects.

Field trips to major cities including Lahore, Peshawar and Karachi are also part of the comprehensive course.

The Foreign Service Academy started offering courses to Iraqi diplomats only in the last three years and so far it has trained five Iraqis.

Also in progress at the Foreign Service Academy is a two-month specialized course for nine Afghan junior-level officers, all of them men. Last year Pakistan trained two Afghan officers for the first time since the interim Karzai government was put in place.

Earlier, the Karzai government had been sending its diplomats to India for training.

The core activity of the Foreign Service Academy remains training diplomats and it has been running special courses for the last 13 years. Since 1989, when it started offering courses to foreign diplomats, it has trained 600 officers from 65 countries, of which as many as 44 are African nations. Others include Central Asian Republics, China, Mongolia, Maldives, Palestine, Bosnia Herzegovina and Latvia.

The Foreign Service Academy is a federal government institution that comes under the ministry of foreign affairs.