LAHORE – Former Foreign Affairs minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Saturday said that his party (the Pakistan People’s Party) was persuading him to join the federal cabinet again, a private TV channel reported.
During a farewell visit to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Qureshi said that Raymond Davis was not a diplomat, adding that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had asked him to validate Davis as a diplomat, a demand which he refused to accept.
He said US Ambassador Cameron Munter had also phoned him to tell that in case Pakistan failed to comply with their requirement, there would be no meeting with Clinton on the sidelines of the recently held Munich conference. Qureshi went on to say that according to the record available with Pakistan, Davis was not a diplomat.
“We can not give him immunity, which they desire for,” he added. It is pertinent to recall that the relations between Pakistan and the US have strained after the shooting incident in Lahore on December 2010. Although Pakistan is a frontline state in the ongoing war against terror, Washington continues to use leverage to pressurise Islamabad to accept multiple demands.
