The US State Department has been taking unusually long to process the appointment of Pakistans Ambassador-designate to Washington, Masood Khan and the delay has triggered an impression of a pause in the process, Dawn reported.
Khan, who served as President of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) till last August, was nominated as Ambassador to the US in November.
He had previously served as Pakistan's Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva and New York and as Ambassador to China.
Khan was to replace the outgoing Ambassador of Pakistan in Washington Asad Majeed Khan.
The request for agreement for Masood Khan had been sent to the State Department in the second week of November, a Pakistani diplomat said.
The agreement is the approval of a designated diplomat by the receiving state.
Normally, the State Department took four to six weeks to issue agreement for Pakistani ambassadors in the past, a former foreign secretary said.
"This time they are taking unusually long," Dawn news quoted another diplomat as saying.
The delay has occurred at a time when ties between the two allies have turned increasingly frosty due to the geo-political environment.
The US interest in Pakistan has waned after it pulled out of Afghanistan. Moreover, Washington looks at ties with Pakistan from the prism of its strategic competition with China, although Islamabad has repeatedly said that it was not part of any camp politics.
US Congressman rejects Masood Khan's appointment
"Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's nomination of a bona fide terrorist sympathiser working to undermine our interests in the region, as well as the security of our Indian allies, can only be described as a breathtaking lack of judgment at best, and a demonstration of Islamabad's unmitigated contempt for the United States at worst," Scott Perry, a Congressman, wrote to President Joe Biden.
"While I'm encouraged that the State Department has reportedly placed a pause on approving Masood Khan as the new ambassador from Pakistan, a pause is not enough. I urge you to reject any diplomatic credentials presented to you by Masood Khan and reject any effort by the government of Pakistan to install this jihadist as Pakistan's ambassador to the US," he wrote.
Perry also exposed Khan's favouritism towards Islamic terrorism. "We know, for instance, that the ambassador-designate is a supporter of the terrorist groups Jamaat-e-Islami, a group that assisted in committing genocide in the early 1970s, as well as Helping Hand for Relief and Development, a group that had no qualms establishing a partnership with the foreign terrorist organisation responsible for the brutal murder of 166 people during the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks (Lashkar-e-Taiba)," Perry said.
Read full letter below:
People in the Foreign Office believe that the delay was because of Masood Khan's last position as the president of PoK.
(With inputs from IANS)
