FM Qureshi meets Fozia Siddiqui, discusses efforts to bring Dr. Aafia back

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Tuesday met Dr. Fozia Siddiqui, sister of Dr Aafia Siddiqui, at the Foreign Office (FO).  

During the meeting, the Foreign Minister apprised Dr Fouzia Siddiqui of the efforts undertaken to bring her sister Dr Aafia back to Pakistan.

“To ensure Dr Aafia’s well-being, we have demanded consular visits,” Qureshi told Dr Fouzia. “We have also spoken to the Pakistan consulate general regarding protecting Dr Aafia’s legal and human rights,” the Minister added.

Last week, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said, the Pakistani government will put all possible efforts on diplomatic level to bring Dr Aafia Siddiqui back to Pakistan.

While talking to media, the foreign minister vowed,”We will do whatever we could on diplomatic level to bring back Aafia Siddiqui.”

Qureshi suggested that Aafia’s family would be relieved, if she serves rest of her prison term in Pakistan.

Few days earlier, the United States side promised to look into the PTI government’s request, while the issue of respecting the human and legal rights of Dr Aafia Siqqiqui was raised in the meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with US ambassador Alice Wells.

Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist and mother of three imprisoned in the US for almost a decade, has written a letter to Prime Minister Imran Khan, seeking his assistance in ensuring her release from the US prison.

The MIT-trained neuro-scientist, Aafia Siddiqui, is serving 86-year prison sentence after being convicted by the US court of seven counts of attempted murder and assault on US military personnel in Afghanistan.