ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Wednesday urged the newly-graduated diplomats to navigate the geopolitical rapids, safeguard and advance national interests and tackle the emerging challenges.
He was addressing the 40th Specialized Diplomatic Course graduation ceremony, here at the Foreign Service Academy, in which 19 participants completed specialised diplomatic course.
Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood and other senior officers of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were also present on the occasion.
The foreign minister asked the diplomats to be innovative and mould themselves according to modern demands of diplomacy to achieve goals efficiently and effectively.
“In fact, I want our diplomats to be articulate, effective team members who think outside the box in order to find solutions and deliver results. However, when you do speak, it must reflect wisdom and intellect rather than emotions,” he told the newly-graduated diplomats.
At the institutional level, he added the Foreign Office was now speaking differently and with greater effect, adding that specialized cells and divisions, namely, the Strategic Communication Division, the Kashmir Cell and Crisis Management Cell were now operational.
For these Cells and Divisions to deliver effectively, for the Foreign Office to deliver effectively, continuous training and capacity building are vital.
“And this is where the Foreign Service Academy must play its role,” he added.
He said the performance of the Foreign Ministry depended on the collective efforts. “As General Douglas MacArthur once said “a general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command .... If the Foreign Ministry does well, it would be because of the competence of its officers,” Qureshi stated while quoting the former Chief of Staff of the United States Army.
He, however, said the foreign policy had to be led by the diplomats whilst accommodating the inputs from various stakeholders.
The foreign minister stressed that a better civil service was important to provide good governance, adding the political leaders gave their ideas and policies and it was the civil service which had to implement them.
“We want the Foreign Ministry to be such an institution that is strong enough to give the leadership that the nation requires,” he said, adding the diplomats would be required to navigate the geopolitical rapids, safeguard and advance national interests in a myriad different ways, and tackle the emerging challenges.
He further said it was also a matter of satisfaction that the curriculum of the training had been upgraded in line with modern requirements.
Under Vision FO, he added that a series of reforms had been instituted under which the Foreign Office was open to inputs for policy formulation, adding that public and economic diplomacy were being mainstreamed.
Qureshi also quoted Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah who had stated: “Our object should be peace within and peace without. We want to live peacefully and maintain cordial and friendly relations with our immediate neighbours and with the world at large.
We have no aggressive designs against anyone. We stand by the United Nations Charter and will gladly make our full contribution to the peace and prosperity of the world.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021