But Pakistan’s new Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar not only added a glam quotient to her country’s troubled ties with India, but has wowed all—the diplomats who took part in the Indo-Pak ministerial talks behind the closed doors or the journalists, whom she addressed along with her host External Affairs Minister S M Krishna.
Krishna, 79, too did refer to the young age of his guest from Islamabad, when he started the talks with a welcome note.
“Half of the population of India and Pakistan are of your age and the two countries must have friendly ties for them and for the coming generations,” a diplomat quoted him as telling Khar, who was clad in off-white salwar-kurta.
Eloquence personified
Khar was at her eloquent best when she told a TV channel, “If experience is going to be measured by my age, I may not be the oldest person around. But I have had two terms as an elected Member of Parliament. I have served two terms in executive. That’s pretty much quite a bit of experience and I am happy to have the pleasure and opportunity to have served in the position of a junior minister where you get sometime to learn on the job.”
Aware that her glamourous look and age was more talked about in New Delhi than the complex issues she came to address with Krishna, she said: “I think I drew attention not because of my personal profile, but because of the country I came from, Pakistan.”
Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani elevated Khar from a Minister of State for Foreign Affairs to cabinet rank just last week. She holds a degree in hospitality from Massachusetts, US.
Gilani’s decision evoked sharp criticism from Maulana Fazlur Rehman, chief of Pakistan’s radical Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party, who said Khar being a businesswoman did not have any “diplomatic and political experience” and might find it difficult to represent Islamabad
properly when she would meet Krishna.
None of the Indian and Pakistani diplomats who were present in Khar’s meeting with Krishna on Wednesday would perhaps agree with Rehman.
She came across as an articulate politician while dealing with complex issues. “She was briefed well and she was pretty good in presenting the views of Pakistan,” said an Indian diplomat.