Foreign Secretary of Pakistan

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The Foreign Secretary of Pakistan is the bureaucratic head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Secretary, as in all other ministries of Government of Pakistan, works under the Minister who is the member of National Assembly. The Foreign Secretary is usually a seasoned diplomat, who is a Grade 22 officer of the Central Superior Services of Pakistan.

Due to the unstable political history of Pakistan, the bureaucrats were usually the policymakers of the country. Similarly, foreign policy of Pakistan was mostly thought up by the then military/political rulers and implemented by the ministry of foreign affairs under chairmanship of the Secretary. Such was the case in the United States opening of relations with China, in which Pakistan acted an important role. It was the then Foreign Secretary Sultan M. Khan who was to arrange the secret visit of U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to China via Pakistan. This visit paved the way to opening of Sino-U.S. relations under President Richard Nixon.^[1]

Some of other foreign secretaries, like Aziz Ahmed, Agha Shahi, Abdul Sattar, later rose to be Foreign Minister of Pakistan.

The current Foreign Secretary is Salman Bashir who was nominated by the ruling coalition in April 2008 after the previous Secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan was sacked when he differentiated with PPP's stance of forming UN tribunal to investigate the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.^[2]

[edit] List of Foreign Secretaries

Name of Foreign Secretary	Entered Office	Left Office
Mohammed Ikramullah	1947	?
Mirza Osman Ali Baig	?	?
J.A. Rahim	?	?
Sikandar Ali Baig	?	?
Mohammed Ikramullah	?	?
S.K. Dehlavi	?	August 1963
Aziz Ahmed	August 1963	August 1966
S.M. Yusuf	August 1966	1969
Sultan Muhammad Khan	1969	1972
Aziz Ahmed	1972	1973
Agha Shahi	1973	1977
Sardar Shah Nawaz	1977	1980
Riaz Piracha	1980	1982
Niaz A. Naik	1982	1986
Abdul Sattar	1986	1988
Humayun Khan	1988	1989
Tanvir Ahmad Khan	1989	1990
Shahryar Khan	1990	1994
Najmuddin Shaikh	1994	March 1997
Shamshad Ahmad Khan	March 1997	February 2000
Inam-ul-Haq	February 2000	June 2002
Riaz Khokhar	June 2002	February 2005
Riaz Mohammad Khan	February 2005	April 2008
Salman Bashir	April 2008	Incumbent