PPP Co-Chairman Bilawal Bhuttc Zardari’s taking oath as Foreign Minister and being assigned the Forein Affairs portfolio should bring a sense of completion to the coalition Cabinet, first because it puts paid to the rumours of differences within the components, and because it fills an important gap in the Shehbaz Sharif Cabinet, where repairing ruptured foreign relations is almost as much a priority as getting the economy back on track. Mr Bhutto Zardari may be at 33 a little young for the job, but having been an MNA since 2018, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, having gone through the whole no-confidence motion process and been co-Chairman of his party for many years, he is hardly inexcperienced. That he is one of the few in Pakistan to be the third generation to have held ministerial office is not really an argument in his favour, but it cannot be ignored.
The first order of business for the new Minister will be mending fences. PTI Chairman Imran Khan continues to harp on the US conspiracy with the opposition (including Mr Zardari) which ousted him. Mr Zardari will have to repair those relations. He will also be responsible for mending fences with China, whose nationals were killed in Karachi the day before he took oath.Then there are prior issues with China, especially the pace of progress on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. There are hurt feelings to be assuaged in the Middle East, where presents to the PM were taken out of Toshakhana and sold on the open market.
Mr Bhutto-Zardari is fortunate that he has a minister of state in Ms Hina Rabbani Khar, who has not only proved her competence in the job before, but has been Foreign Minister herself. The expertise of the Foreign Office was at times ignored under the previous incumbent, Mr Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who at times seemed more loyal to his party than the country, most notably in the matter of the alleged foreign conspiracy.
