Hina Rabbani Khar to be Pakistan’s first lady Foreign Minister
The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is a liberal party and it’s government has not only taken measures to provide protection to women but also elevated their positions by giving them important portfolios. These measures give women honour & protection not only inside but also outside their homes as well as at places of their work. It has always been a PPP government that has recognised women’s rights as a mainstream issue, not just for manifesto promises, but for executive and legislative action.
PPP’s visionary leader Shaheed Benazir Bhutto was the first woman elected to lead a Muslim state, having twice been Prime Minister of Pakistan (1988-1990; 1993-1996). She was Pakistan”s first and to date only female prime minister.
It was the PPP government which made Sherry Rehman first woman federal minister for information and broadcasting. It was Dr Fehmida Mirza of the PPP, who made history after being elected as the first woman speaker of the National Assembly.
Now, PPP-led government has decided to appoint Hina Rabbani Khar, minister of state for foreign affairs, as full-time foreign minister, and she is set to become Pakistan’s first woman Foreign Minister, with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani recommending her elevation as a full-fledged Minister, ahead of the India-Pak Foreign Minister-level talks this month.
The decision in this regard was taken by PM Yusuf Raza Gilani on Monday and sent a summary for Khar’s appointment as the new foreign minister to President Asif Ali Zardari for a formal approval.
The slot of Pakistan’s foreign minister was vacant since February 9 when a traitor of the PPP Shah Mahmood Qureshi was removed form the post for his betrayal & pro establishment stance over the diplomatic status of Raymond Davis. Four days after Qureshi’s removal, she was appointed minister of state for foreign affairs.
The move to elevate Hina Rabbani Khar as FM was made in the wake of upcoming India-Pakistan FM level talks, official sources said.
The talks scheduled for July 26 in New Delhi mark the first foreign minister talks between Pakistan and India in a year.
Both countries vowed to carry forward the dialogue – suspended after the November 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai – in “a constructive and purposeful manner”.
The outgoing Indian foreign secretary has said that a change in Pakistan’s attitude constituted a concrete development.
i have proud to hina rabani khar becouse she is the first women interier minister from our party pppp
Daily Times EDITORIAL: Pakistan’s new foreign minister
The elevation of Hina Rabbani Khar as the foreign
minister of Pakistan from the position of minister of state for foreign affairs has been done keeping in view a few upcoming important foreign assignments, especially the foreign ministerial level peace talks with India on July 27.
Ms Khar is the first Pakistani woman and the youngest person to assume the office of Pakistan’s ministry of foreign affairs. Her appointment to such an important ministerial portfolio can be sighted as another step towards women empowerment. However, it has raised eyebrows of many veteran PPP leaders and political analysts. They are questioning the party leadership’s criterion for her selection.
Ms Khar’s previous affiliation with the PML-Q and later on her move into the ranks of the PPP in the 2008 elections make her a typical example of those who pursue the politics of opportunism. The PPP is one of the most popular and largest political parties with a substantial pool of seasoned politicians, die-hard workers and staunch supporters. It is thus surprising how its leadership could not find a suitable person from within the party to fill the slot that remained vacant for five months after Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s forced departure from the foreign office. The PPP seems to have lost a big pool of its devoted and competent party-men who had been pretty close to Benazir Bhutto in her lifetime. Many of them have distanced themselves from the party under one or the other excuse while a number of them have been sidelined by the party leadership on different occasions since it assumed power in 2008. Her selection reflects that the PPP no longer enjoys the support of its veterans and the vacuum between the estranged PPP leaders and the present leadership is widening with each passing day. This portfolio could have been used for reconciliation and to bring estranged party leaders back into the mainstream.
Ms Khar is going to represent Pakistan at the Association for South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) forum on July 22-23 in Bali, Indonesia, while on its sidelines, she will also hold talks with the artful Hillary Clinton and the articulate Yang Jiechi, her counterparts hailing from the US and China. But her end of the month meeting with her Indian counterpart S M Krishna in New Delhi will decide her competence to handle her newly won portfolio. At present, Pakistan’s foreign policy is facing various challenges. We are in a state of tension with both the US and our neighbour, India. The menace of terrorism also impinges upon our already shattered foreign policy. In these circumstances, how the lady copes with her assignment and how long she stays will determine the wisdom behind her selection.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=20117\21\story_21-7-2011_pg3_1
HINA RABBANI KHAR
It should be possible to build beyond Confidential Building Measures (CBM) because she seems to be such a terrific lady. For example, one of the most precious universal gifts that Pakistan and India share is Classical Music. Countless compositions, Methodology and style of playing music and singing music have disappeared in the hostility between our countries. To keep this oral tradition alive, we must make music teaching and playing as free of bureaucracy as possible. If we don’t let the flowers of sound grow and flourish in both Pakistan and India, what we face is a musical desert. Remember, once our common tradition disappears, it will be impossible to bring it back because the musical culture in south Asia is common to only Pakistan and India.
It is unbelievable that just within our borders in Kutch, Punjab and so on… there are pockets of musicians who are simply separated by a historical event from their families and traditions and have not seen them since Partition. They stoically carry on some of the rarest traditions of music and folk art with very little support from anywhere.
Supporting cross border exchanges among ordinary people and not simply stars would make great ambassadors for peace, understanding, fellowship and acceptance of each nation.
Dailytimes fell in the oft repeated mantra of depoliticised liberals singing a party song ‘I hate you(Like I love you).
When they talk of Hina Rabbani Khar party affliction, they forget to mention that she won as PPP candidate.
Let us look at this whole scenario in an alternative way.
Its quite obvious that foreign office in Pakistan is just an extension of Pakistan security establishment reflections. And just suppose HRK is an opportunist, then it indeed is more appropriate not to waste a seasoned politicians in a ministry working as an extension to military. Or say it whether our security establishment will allow a PPP stalwart, which Dailytimes claims have left the party, into the office under their influence.
The stalwarts and seasoned politicians are people who cannot be elected until they become ‘Nawaz Sharif ka wakil and PPP Ka numainda’ and these stalwarts are being tested in their silence on the brutal murder of SalmanT and their inability to condemn their rose petallers, when they showered from the same basket on a lunatic killer.