Hina Pakistan’s first woman FM

Hina Rabbani Khar became the country’s first foreign minister as Acting President Farooq Naik administered oath to her at a simple ceremony held at the Aiwan-e-Sadr on Tuesday.
The oath-taking ceremony was attended by ministers, parliamentarians, federal secretaries, diplomats and senior officials of the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
On the advice of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, President Asif Ali Zardari had decided to elevate Hina as federal minister. Hina took oath as the country’s twenty-sixth minister of foreign affairs. She has the distinction of being the youngest and first woman foreign minister of the country. Hina will proceed to Indonesia later this week to lead the Pakistan delegation to the 18th ASEAN Regional Forum where she is expected to have meetings with Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi, and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
On her return, Hina would proceed to India for the ministerial-level dialogue where she would interact with her Indian counterpart SM Krishna. After removal of former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi in February this year, the Foreign Ministry was being run on an ad hoc basis by the government and Hina who was the minister of state for foreign affairs. However, special support by Gilani and President Zardari’s obsession of appointing women to important government slots helped Hina’s elevation to the top slot of the Foreign Ministry.
Uninterrupted dialogue: Later, in a meeting with Indian High Commissioner Sharat Sabharwal, who called on the new foreign minister at the Foreign Office, Hina said the Indo-Pak dialogue process should be uninterrupted, uninterruptible and result oriented. She expressed satisfaction over the resumption of the dialogue and progress made so far in the peace process, according to a Foreign Office statement. She said the dialogue process should help build trust between the two neighbours.
Hina said ensuring cooperative relations with regional countries was at the forefront of Pakistan’s foreign policy. Sabharwal said the Indian external affairs minister looked forward to Hina’s visit to India. He agreed that the dialogue process was as much about building trust as about resolving all issues.