ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s prime minister-elect Nawaz Sharif will oversee the sensitive foreign and defence portfolios as he seeks to forge a working partnership with the all-powerful military in the early days of his tenure, sources close to him said.
Sharif, ousted in a bloodless military coup in 1999, has decided not to appoint defence and foreign ministers in the cabinet he is putting together.
He led his party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), back to power in the May 11 election. Instead, he will select a retired civil servant as an adviser on foreign affairs — Tariq Fatemi, a former ambassador to the US and the European Union, the sources said.
The army has ruled Pakistan for more than half its history since partition with India in 1947 and critics say generals have jealously guarded the right to dictate foreign policy.
The move to defer appointing a foreign minister suggests that Sharif wants to get to grips with the government’s relationship with the army. “The incoming government and the army need to be on the same page on key foreign policy issues, not least Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan, India and the US,” a PML-N insider said, requesting anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media about the issue.
The US wants its ally Pakistan to help rein in the Afghan Taliban before most Nato combat troops pull out of strife-torn Afghanistan in 2014. Pakistan’s arch rival, India, with which Pakistan has fought three wars since 1947, is constantly a perceived threat. Reuters
