Foreign Minister Inaugurates Foreign Office Media Centre

ISLAMABAD, 12 October: Pursuant to Vision FO series of initiatives, Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi inaugurated the new, state-of-the-art, multi-purpose Media Briefing Centre in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs today.

The Media Centre is equipped with latest digital technologies aimed at improving the interface between the Ministry and the press corps.

Addressing the gathering, the Foreign Minister observed that the Media Centre represented the new face of the Ministry, and underscored the abiding linkage between the Foreign Office and the press, which remained an important partner.

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He maintained that effective narrative building and dissemination necessitated active engagement and collaboration with the media community. In line the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan, a Strategic Communications Division had been set up in the Ministry to build further targeted narratives and shape positive perceptions.

The Foreign Minister further highlighted the series of reform measures taken over the past two years to upgrade the toolkit of the Foreign Office to meet the demands and challenges of Twenty-First Century diplomacy. These included inter alia setting up specialized Cells and structures in the Foreign Office. The training arm of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Foreign Service Academy, had been shifted to a sprawling new campus. The role of think tanks affiliated with the Ministry, including the Institute of Strategic Studies and the Institute of Regional Studies, was being made more effective. An Advisory Council on Foreign Affairs had been set up to channel independent research and inputs into foreign policy formulation.

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Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood while thanking the participants underscored the crucial role played by the media in augmenting the national narrative, and lauded efforts by Foreign Office press corps in transmitting Pakistan’s foreign policy perspectives to the people of Pakistan and the international community.

Two short documentaries, on foreign policy achievements over the past two years as well as various initiatives taken to strengthen the capacity of the Foreign Office, were shown during the event.