Lieutenant General (retd) Bilal Akbar Pakistan's new Ambassador to Saudi Arabia

 

The government has appointed Lieutenant General (retd) Bilal Akbar as the new ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

According to the newspaper report, General (retd) Bilal Akbar will replace Ambassador Raja Ali Ijaz who is retiring from his service in May. Raja Ali Ijaz has been Ambassador to Riyadh since January 2019.

It should be noted that the position of ambassador to Riyadh has often been held by retired military officers, which reflects the fact that defense ties are the foundation of strong bilateral relations, although for some time this position has also been held by diplomats from the Foreign Service. Is.

Retired generals are appointed against the 20% quota for political appointments, while retired officers of the armed forces are ambassadors to Brunei, Jordan, Syria, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Maldives, Nigeria and Libya.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government has seldom made any political appointments to diplomatic posts, so quotas for non-cairists are currently being used mostly by retired military officials.

It may be recalled that General (retd) Akbar retired from the Pakistan Army in December last year and his last appointment was as the Chairman of Pakistan Ordnance Factory (POF) Wah.

He has had an illustrious career in the Army where he served as the Chief of General Staff and Commander of the 10 Corps from Rawalpindi as a Three Star General, not to mention that many were shocked when Bilal Akbar was appointed chairman of the POF in September 2019, several months before the extension of the tenure of Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa began.

The appointment of General Bilal Akbar on the recommendation of General Headquarters reflects the military's desire to take control of bilateral relations that had recently been strained to prevent them from deteriorating further.

Initially, it is understood that Saudi Arabia had asked Pakistan to repay the loan and did not agree to rollover it, while Pakistani workers were also expelled from the country during the Code 19 epidemic.

Meanwhile, Riyadh was held near New Delhi and was invited by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for an important financial conference while the two countries introduced the Strategic Partnership Council to strengthen their ties.

Therefore, this new assignment will be challenging for General (retd) Bilal Akbar.