NA Question Hour: Only 30 Pakistanis left in Syria

Foreign minister says the government has a mechanism to help those who require evacuation from Syria.

ISLAMABAD:

Only 20 to 30 Pakistanis are residing in Syria while all of our students there returned home when the conflict started, Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs Palwasha Khan told the House on Thursday.

Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar informed the lawmakers that the government has a mechanism to help those who require evacuation from Syria.

The Pakistan Embassy in Beirut has been made responsible to help them after the temporary closure of our mission in Damascus, she said.

Khar said that Pakistan has bilateral arrangements with India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh for the release and exchange of prisoners. “However, we face difficulties securing the release of our prisoners in India due to tense relations,” she said. “India has released 767 Pakistani prisoners, mostly fishermen, during the last five years.”

Responding to a query posed by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz MNA Tasneem Siddiqi, the foreign minister said that the spouses and children of four Pakistani ambassadors are foreign nationals. Close to two dozen senior foreign ministry officers also hold dual nationality.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 1^st, 2013.