Former spokesperson for the Foreign Office, Tasneem Aslam, has revealed that the ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had barred the Foreign Office from commenting against India and its arrested spy Kulbhushan Jadhav during his last tenure.

In a video going viral on social media ahead of the elections in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), the former spokesperson could be heard saying that the FO was directed not to mention India and Kashmir in its statements.

“Nawaz Sharif did not want to say anything against India and Jadhav through the Foreign Office,” she claimed during an interview with a YouTube channel being run by an Islamabad-based journalist, Isa Naqvi.

When asked if this was done for the larger benefit of the country, she said: “It did not benefit the country but I can’t say whether it benefited his [Nawaz’s] own interests or not.”

Having served as Foreign Office spokesperson twice — first from 2005 to 2007 during the regime of General Pervez Musharraf and then during the last Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government between 2013 and 2017, Tasneem Aslam, maintained that Sharif had business interests in India which he did not want to harm by supporting Kashmir cause.

“Sharif did not meet leaders of India-held Kashmir’s political party Hurriyat. Usually, every prime minister of Pakistan meets Hurriyat leaders but Nawaz Sharif did not meet them when he visited India [in 2014].”

She mentioned that even in his speeches at the UN summit, Nawaz Sharif refrained from speaking against India and Jadhav.