ISLAMABAD: Pakistan appointed a former information minister and human rights campaigner as its ambassador to the United States on Wednesday, moving quickly to fill a post left vacant after Husain Haqqani’s resignation.
“The prime minister is pleased to appoint Sherry Rehman as the new ambassador to the United States,” said the spokesman for the prime minister’s office, Akram Shaheedi.
Rehman is veteran member of President Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party and a staunch proponent of civilian rule.
Former ambassador Husain Haqqani resigned on Tuesday, days after a Pakistani-American businessman accused him of being behind a memo that said the military was plotting a coup and appealed to the Pentagon to help ward it off.
Haqqani denied any connection with the memo.
Rehman, a former journalist, was information minister for Zardari. She resigned in March 2009 over a crisis in which the government was refusing to reinstate judges sacked under the military regime of President Pervez Musharraf.
Rehman has been a strong advocate of women’s and minority rights and faced death threats for her calls to reform the country’s blasphemy laws.
Haqqani resigned on Tuesday, days after a Pakistani-American businessman accused him of being behind a memo that accused the Pakistani military of plotting a coup in May.
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