LAHORE: PML-N President and National Assembly Opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif has taken on Prime Minister Imran Khan for, what he termed, his (PM’s) intemperate public remarks against the Pakistani diplomats working under challenging circumstances.

“Shocked to learn of PM IK’s intemperate public remarks against our diplomats working under difficult circumstances while confronting huge challenges. PM should be reinforcing them in their valiant efforts rather than ridiculing them in public,” Shehbaz wrote in a tweet on Thursday.

“PM’s public diatribe against our diplomats will demoralize our valiant defenders of country’s national interests,” the tweet went on.

Reacting strongly to the ‘indifferent’ attitude of the country’s envoys towards expatriates, PM Khan on Wednesday had rebuked diplomats for their failure to serve the Pakistani diaspora, warning that the missions could not be run in the manner they were being run.

“I am shocked to receive complaints from overseas Pakistanis that our embassies are doing nothing to resolve their problems. Therefore, this time, I want to monitor and evaluate the performance of our embassies abroad,” the prime minister had said while addressing the ambassadors and high commissioners via a video link.

Talking on PML-N’s victory in Khushab by-poll, Mr Shehbaz said it was the defeat of sugar and flour mafia.

“This victory proves that the people remember the PML-N’s development work under Nawaz Sharif,” he said.

Marriyum: PML-N information secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb says in a statement Prime Minister Imran Khan has all of a sudden remembered Pakistani ambassadors abroad after the total destruction of Pakistan’s diplomatic apparatus.

She said if the prime minister had to take a review of the diplomatic situation why did he need to make a public fiasco and a media circus out of it. “Who’s agenda is Imran working on exactly”? she questioned.

To Imran’s address to the envoys over a video link, she said after humiliating bureaucrats in the country, Imran’s government had now started berating Pakistan’s envoys abroad.

She urged Mr Khan to learn diplomatic norms and values and reminded him it was not one of his sermons from the container. She said the prime minister should not use his container language with Pakistani envoys. She said Mr Khan did not even know that issue of passports was not relevant to the foreign service group but was the jurisdiction of the interior ministry.

Published in Dawn, May 7th, 2021