Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir is tipped to become the next High Commissioner to India after he retires in early March. An official announcement is still awaited and the Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit's response to whether news reports in the local media to this effect were correct was “don't know”.
That Mr. Bashir would replace incumbent Shahid Malik has been in the air for over a year now. On Wednesday, Dawn newspaper reported that the government had named Pakistan's Ambassador to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg Jalil Abbas Jilani as the next Foreign Secretary.
Mr. Jilani — who had served in India between 1999 and 2003 — was expelled by New Delhi along with four other officials of the Pakistan High Commission for allegedly funding the Hurriyat Conference. He was then the acting High Commissioner and the expulsion had drawn reciprocal action from Pakistan in the tit-for-tat behaviour that has been typical of Indo-Pak relations.
