By Imran Nasir

ISLAMABAD (TSAT) - Pakistan on Friday expressed anger over some western countries ambassadors based in Islamabad public statement and urged the country to condemn Russia attack over Ukraine.

During weekly press briefing, Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman Asim Iftikhar Ahmad called the ambassador act as against “diplomatic norms and protocols.”

“I think it is a tricky tool – the social media platforms and one has to be careful in using them. Our Ambassadors also use twitter abroad, but I think we use that in a responsible manner and the important thing is that there are always certain diplomatic norms and protocols that we understand are to be followed,” he said.

 “It is not usual diplomatic practice to say such things through media, and we have made that clear,” he added.

On March 2, the Denmark ambassador to Pakistan Lis Rosenholm posted a press release on her embassy official twitter handle signed by the EU, Australia, Japan, UK, Canada and Switzerland ambassador based in Islamabad and urged Pakistani government to join them and condemn the Russian attack against Ukraine. 

The move spread anger across the country and people strongly reacted over the western envoys press release and called it against the diplomatic principles.  

“We expressed our concern about that [press release], because as I said that is not the way diplomacy should be practiced, and I think they have realized,” said Ahmad.

He added that the foreign ministry officials meet with ambassadors and its normal way of conducting diplomatic activities .

“We have no issue with that as we ourselves are engaging very pro-actively and we have also been meeting on short notices even though we are in the middle of preparing for a major conference in two weeks times, the OIC-CFM.”

“The press release was not the right way and it has been conveyed to them,” he added.