Pak treaties compiled for public viewing

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has compiled treaties signed by Pakistan and will place them at the National Library. The record will be available to the general public.

It took four years for these documents to be compiled for public viewing. The 12-volume publication titled Pakistan Treaty Series, contains agreements, protocols and conventions signed by Pakistan during the 1947-2009 period. They have been organised in a chronological order.

Riaz Ahmed Syed, a retired Foreign Office official who is also a researcher, said he took personal interest in this project, believing that the information should be made more easily accessible for students, historians and others who have an interest in the area.

The documents have been gathered from various ministries, archives of the Foreign Office and the National Documentation Centre of the Cabinet Division.

A senior official of the Prime Minister’s Secretariat, however, said it would have been better if the records had just been uploaded on the ministry’s website.

“The common man has to follow formal bureaucratic channels, which is a difficult task. He might not know which officer or which wing of the ministry to approach and a civil servant will normally not respond to his request.”

Published in the Express Tribune, June 7^th, 2010.