Pak Foreign Office upset over Imran govt's move to bring diplomatic cable to Parliament

Conveying their apprehension over Imran Khan government's move to present the contents of the controversial "diplomatic cable" before the Parliament, Pakistan's Foreign Office warned that such a move would undermine the working of the missions abroad and also "damage" country's national interests.

The under-fire Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government on Friday decided to present the contents of the letter in Pakistan Parliament, which Imran Khan claimed contained evidence of a foreign plot seeking a regime change in the country, The Express Tribune newspaper reported.

Pakistan Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said that the "original records of the cipher, only available with the government, would be kept in front of Parliament".

"The Foreign Office thinks overwhelmingly that (Pakistan) foreign secretary shouldn't make public the contents of the (coded) telegram dated March 7," an unnamed official in Pakistan's Foreign Ministry, told Geo News on the request of anonymity.

"The ambassadors should be encouraged to share their assessments based on their interactions with their interlocutors of the host countries, and any step contrary to this would be detrimental to the national interest," the official pointed out.

"This is practiced all over the world. Nowhere in the world, an ambassador's cable is ever released for political purposes. There is not a single example of this," he added.

Last week, Imran Khan asked Pakistani President Arif Alvi to dissolve the Parliament following the dismissal of the motion of no confidence in Khan as unconstitutional. Information Minister Fawad Hussain said Khan will continue his duties under Article 224 of the basic law.

The decision to cancel the no-confidence vote was challenged in court by the opposition. The Supreme Court ruled to hold the voting, scheduled for Saturday. Khan, in turn, said the opposition's motion was an attempt by foreign powers to depose him.

( With inputs from ANI )

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