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Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's Performance Delivery Unit (PMDU) released a list of top-performing Ministries and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs secured a low ranking after which Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has expressed displeasure.
Prime Minister Imran Khan had distributed certificates among his best-performing Ministries and as Foreign Minister was ranked low at the 11th position, Qureshi was not handed over the certificate, reported ARY News. Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also criticized the Imran Khan government for not handing over the certificate to Qureshi. Not only the opposition, but even the allies of the ruling PTI government in the centre have expressed their disappointment when their ministries were not named among the top performers, reported the news channel. Notably, Mahmood Qureshi remained surrounded with a lot of controversies during his foreign ministerial ship, especially his comments regarding Saudi Arabia that made Pakistan to pay back USD 1 billion to Saudi Arabia. On August 5, during the first anniversary of India's revocation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir, Qureshi had slammed Saudi Arabia in a TV interview for not obliging Pakistan to 'organise' a meeting of the Council of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Foreign Ministers (CFM) on Kashmir in early February. Saudi Arabia has helped Pakistan many times including helping in paying for the Asian country's first batch of F-16 fighter aircraft in the 1980s. The country also provided USD 6 billion loans that helped Islamabad tide over its balance of payments crisis however Pakistan had to do damage control a lot of times because of Qureshi's remarks on Saudi Arabia. FM Qureshi, in his letter to PM's aide on the establishment, discouraged the ranking and questioned its criteria. Qureshi was also slammed by Pakistani citizens on social media over the "disrespectful" position" during his meeting with Saudi Arabia Ambassador Nawaf bin Said Al-Malki. (ANI)
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