Sadiq Khan appointed special assistant to PM Shehbaz

Senior diplomat Sadiq Khan has been appointed special assistant to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Khan is Pakistan’s special representative on Afghanistan affairs. His new title will be equal to the title of state minister. The Cabinet Division has notified Khan’s appoint as special assistant to the prime minister.

In June 2020, the government appointed Khan special ambassador to Afghanistan after he spearheaded efforts to start intra-Afghan negotiations aimed at ending Washington's longest war in the landlocked country.

However, Khan resigned as Pakistan’s special representative to Afghanistan in March 2023. “After serving close to three years as Pakistan’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, I have requested the government that the time had come for me to move on and focus on my personal pursuits — family, books and agriculture/environment,” he said in a series of tweets on March 1, 2023.

Khan said he was grateful to the prime minister and all the other stakeholders for their “wholehearted support” to him as special envoy. “I deeply appreciate the hard work of many of my colleagues who spent long hours to make the Pakistan-Afghanistan relationship work,” he added.