Veteran diplomat Mohammad Sadiq resigned as Pakistan’s special representative to Afghanistan on Wednesday.

“After serving close to three years as Pakistan’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, I have requested the government that the time had come for me to move on and focus on my personal pursuits — family, books and agriculture/environment,” he said in a series of tweets today.

Sadiq said that he was grateful to the prime minister and all the other stakeholders for their “wholehearted support” to him as the special envoy.

“I deeply appreciate the hard work of many of my colleagues who spent long hours to make the Pakistan-Afghanistan relationship work,” he added.

The former ex-envoy confirmed the same to Dawn.com, saying that he had tendered his resignation to the premier. He also said that his resignation had been accepted by PM Shehbaz.

A notification issued later in the day from the Cabinet Division said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had accepted Sadiq’s resignation as a special assistant to the prime minister with immediate effect.

Sadiq was appointed to the crucial Afghan position in June 2020.

A career diplomat who retired in 2016 from the position of secretary of the national security division, Sadiq was Pakistan’s ambassador in Kabul between December 2008 and April 2014.

He also served as Foreign Office spokesperson for about one and a half years. He was also posted in Washington DC (1998-2000), Beijing (1994-1998) and Brussels.