The public spat between Pakistan’s outgoing High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit and Pakistan’s Ambassador to US Aizaz Ahmed was resolved on Tuesday when Aizaz Ahmed finally returned the Rs 2000 he owed Basit.
“You are the worst foreign secretary ever,” read Basit’s internal letter to Aizaz Ahmed, who was the foreign secretary prior to his current assignment. “My concern is that you would also end up being the worst Pakistani ambassador in Washington DC.”
“Your heart is also not in the right place,” the letter continued.
Luckily, the tension was resolved when mutual friends interceded and made the former foreign secretary return the Rs 2000 he had borrowed from the High Commissioner and was not returning.
“He said his phone was out of credit and that he had a post-paid connection and couldn’t make do with a Rs 100 easyload,” said Basit. “So I gave him the money, but after that, he started avoiding me.”
“We are all hostelites,” said Basit, referring to the Foreign Services Hostel in sector F-5. “And things are tight when our monthly allowances are out.”
“And it’s not even about the money, it’s about the asool,” he said.
“It was only a minor misunderstanding,” said Aizaz Ahmed. “He is a buddy and a pal. He should have come directly to me instead of asking others to talk to me.”
This is not the first time Basit had made public his discontentment with a fellow diplomat. Last year, he lashed out against Pakistan’s Ambassador to Indonesia who had not returned his CD-70 after borrowing it.