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The Special
Assistant to the Prime Minister / Minister of
State belongs to a well-known
Sufi family, with his father, the late Professor Syed
Alay Mohammad Abdur Rauf Fatemi, a well-known
educationist and scholar of repute in former East
Pakistan.
A career diplomat
for over 35 years, he held various diplomatic
assignments in Pakistan Missions abroad, including
Moscow (twice), New York, Washington (twice) and
Beijing. He was Additional Foreign Secretary, (Americas
and Europe Divisions) and later worked in the Prime
Minister’s Office, in charge of Defense, Defense
Production and Foreign Affairs. In 1999, he was promoted
to the highest rank in the country’s civil service, that
of a Federal Secretary.
A delegate to the
UN General Assembly Sessions from 1982 to 1986, he also
attended numerous Non-Aligned and OIC Conferences, while
also being a member of the UN sponsored Geneva
negotiations on Afghanistan.
He served as High
Commissioner (Ambassador) of Pakistan to Zimbabwe, with
concurrent accreditation to Angola, Botswana, Namibia
and Zambia. Later, he served as Ambassador to the United
States, Jordan, Belgium and Luxembourg and finally, to
the European Union (Brussels), from where he retired in
2004.
On retirement, he
joined the Pakistan Muslim League (N), assisting the
Party on foreign policy matters. He also taught at the
Foreign Service Academy, the National Defense
University, the Administrative Staff College and other
institutions. He was also a Consultant with a major
private sector energy and power company, while writing
weekly columns for five years for the daily “Dawn” and
later for the daily “The Express Tribune,” on national
security issues. He is also a co-author of the Brookings
Institution’s book: “The Future of Pakistan”. He is
fluent in Russian and Bengali.
The Special
Assistant has the status of a Minister of State.
He is married
with four children and four grandchildren. |
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