ISLAMABAD: The government on Friday appointed Ambassador Dr Asad Majeed Khan as Pakistan’s new Foreign Secretary, who got prominence from a cipher which former prime minister Imran Khan presented as an evidence of an alleged foreign conspiracy behind his ouster in April this year.

The Establishment Division on Friday formally notified Majeed Khan’s appointment as the new Foreign Secretary after a month-long delay following the retirement of ex-foreign secretary, Sohail Mahmood, on November 29.

“Dr Asad Majeed Khan, a BS-22 officer of Foreign Service of Pakistan, presently posted as Ambassador in the Embassy of Pakistan to Belgium, the European Union and Luxembourg, is transferred and posted as Secretary, Foreign Affairs Division, with immediate effect and until further orders,” the notification stated.

Earlier, the government put on hold the formal notification of Dr Khan as the new foreign secretary following differences within the ruling coalition, and had named another senior diplomat Jauhar Saleem as the acting foreign secretary.

Asad Majeed likely to be appointed as foreign secretary

Khan is a career Pakistan Foreign Service officer. He had been nominated as the 31st foreign secretary of Pakistan.

During his diplomatic career spanning over 34 years, Ambassador Khan has held several key diplomatic assignments.

He served as Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States, Pakistan’s Ambassador to Japan; Additional Foreign Secretary (Americas); Director General (Americas); Director General (West Asia); Pakistan’s Charge d’Affaires and interim to the United States; Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy of Pakistan, Washington DC; Additional Secretary (Foreign Affairs) at the President’s Secretariat; Director General (United Nations); and Minister-Counsellor at the Permanent Mission of Pakistan to the United Nations.

Ambassador Khan holds a doctorate in International Economic and Business Law (LL.D) from Kyushu University, Japan and has been a resource person at a number of academic institutions.

The newly-appointed foreign secretary was the centre of attention during the last days of former prime minister and PTI Chairman Imran Khan in the office when he brought some of the content of the cipher about conversation with a senior official of the US State Department, Donald Lu, in public during a rally.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022