After UNGA Setback On Kashmir, Imran Khan Sacks Pakistan’s Representative To UN Maleeha Lodhi

As per the reports carried in Pakistani media, Lodhi will be replaced by Munir Akram, who had done a previous stint as the permanent representative.

Image: AP

New Delhi: After Pakistan’s failure in internationalising its propaganda about Kashmir at the 74th session of United Nations General Assembly, Prime Minister Imran Khan has abruptly removed his country's permanent representative to the UN, Maleeha Lodhi. As per the reports carried in Pakistani media, Lodhi will be replaced by Munir Akram, who had done a previous stint as the permanent representative. Despite Maleeha Lodhi's campaign at the UN and Khan's intense diplomatic activity, only three countries, China, Malaysia and Turkey, joined Pakistan in raising the Kashmir issue - which meant they did not have any influence on the other 189 countries in the 193-member UN. Akram was involved in an alleged domestic violence incident in 2002 just as Pakistan was taking its place on Security Council as an elected member and the US asked his country to lift his diplomatic immunity so he could be prosecuted. But he managed to stay on till 2008.’ After returning from US, Khan in an apparent acceptance of failure said that “whether the world stands with Kashmiris or not, Pakistan is standing by them." Maleeha Lodhi has more than once brought embarrassment to the country by her blunders on the social media claims. She had termed UK Prime Minister Borish Johnson as Foreign Minister as she tweeted a picture from Imran Khan’s bilateral meeting with him, on the sidelines of the UNGA. After she was brutally trolled, she posted a correction and termed her previous blunder as a “typo.” In 2017, she held up a picture of an injured Palestinian girl in the General Assembly claiming that she was a Kashmiri and the hoax was exposed. She tweeted after Monday's announcement of her removal, "I had planned to move on after UNGA following a successful visit by the PM." Lodhi has previously served twice as ambassador to the US, the second time covering the crucial period of the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks on the US and the US-led action in Afghanistan in which Pakistan became involved as a logistics provider.