PTI urges caretaker PM to void Ali Jahangir Siddiqui’s appointment as envoy to US

Imran Khan's party wants Justice Mulk to replace Siddiqui with ‘reasonable and experienced diplomat’

ISLAMABAD: In their inaugural demand to incoming caretaker prime minister Nasirul Mulk, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has urged the former to immediately withdraw notification regarding appointment of Ali Jahangir Siddiqui as Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States.

Siddiqui’s appointment came just four days before end of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government and sources said the ambassador-designate left for the US via Abu Dhabi on Saturday night at 8:40.

The appointment raised many questions and diplomats expressed their surprise over the decision.

In a letter, written on Tuesday by PTI’s information secretary Fawad Chaudhry, the PTI said Siddiqui’s appointment on the “world’s most important diplomatic post was an attempt to murder the national interest”.



Terming Siddiqui a ‘novice’ with respect to diplomacy, foreign affairs and international relations, the Imran Khan-led party claimed that the former’s political allegiance and affiliation with Sharif family and business relations with PM Abbasi’s family played a role in the appointment.

With the aforementioned background, the nation is right is assuming that the said person [Siddiqui] is not being sent to Washington to improve and nurture complex bilateral ties with the US but only for the fulfillment of the ruling family and party’s private agenda, the letter further read.

The party went on to claim that Ali Jahangir Siddiqui was also involved in mega corruption scandals along with the ruling party and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was also busy investigating the scams against him.



The PTI urged the incoming caretaker PM to take notice of the situation, declare the appointment null and void and replace Siddiqui with a ‘reasonable and experienced diplomat’.

Diplomats and senior Foreign Office officials had also expressed reservations over the appointment. They said that the appointment was politically motivated.

Interestingly, there are pending cases against him in the Islamabad High Court and the national corruption watchdog is also probing a number of cases against Siddiqui.