Daily Times

One of the most seasoned veteran diplomats of Pakistan, Jauhar Saleem, has arrived in Rome last week as the new ambassador-designate of Pakistan to Italy, despite the widespread disruption of flights and lockdown. Italy is reeling from the worst effects of COVID-19 which has the largest Pakistani diaspora in Europe after the United Kingdom.

Jauhar Saleem had already been overseeing the working of the embassy in Rome, while serving as ambassador to Germany for the last couple of months when the mission in Italy was without an ambassador.

Under his watch, the Pakistani communities in the two European countries, hit by COVID-19 pandemic, had been well looked after, avoiding several issues faced by some of the other Pakistani communities abroad.

Widely respected in diplomatic circles for his experience and strategic thinking, Saleem has been known to handle crises since long, having supervised the evacuation operations for thousands of Pakistanis stranded in war torn Libya in 2014 and Yemen in 2015. Now he will have to continue with his endeavours to support the Pakistani diaspora in Italy at a critical time owing to the ongoing pandemic.

During his four-and-a-half-year long tenure as Ambassador to Germany, Pakistan’s exports increased by about 40 percent and trade surplus crossed seven hundred million dollars. Investment cooperation which had stalled earlier was also reignited with world ‘s largest automobile producer, Volkswagen, signing an agreement to set up a plant in Pakistan. Siemens also designed its business in Pakistan in a big way while Metro Cash & Carry further expanded its operations.

Moreover, a long-standing demand of the Pakistani community in Germany was also met when the issue of dual nationality for their children was resolved a few months ago.

In his earlier assignment as envoy to Bahrain, he was instrumental in organising the official visit of the King of Bahrain to Islamabad during which many important agreements of bilateral cooperation were signed.

With his taking charge in Rome, he joins the exclusive league of ambassadors such as Riaz Khokhar and Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, who each did four ambassadorial assignments decades ago.