*LAHORE: Lahore High Court (LHC) has given a last chance to the foreignministry of Pakistan to submit its response on appointing Ali JahangirSiddiqui as the Pakistani envoy to the United States. *

The LHC was hearing the case against the appointment of Ali Jahangir as theambassador to the US and took the female protocol officer of foreignministry to task for not complying with court’s order of submitting arejoinder on Ali’s hiring from the ministry.

The high court warned if response is not submitted by the next hearing ofthe case then foreign secretary will be summoned to appear before the court.

The petition filed in the court argued that Ali Jahangir’s academicqualification is merely Bachelors and the fact that he does not have anyprior experience in diplomacy, may turn out to be a disaster for thebilateral ties between the US and Pakistan.

On May 8, Siddiqui was appointed as the ambassador to the US after AizazAhmed Chaudhry, his predecessor, retired from the post. The new envoyreached Washington, DC on May 29.

Siddiqui, who holds a BA in Economics from Cornell University, US, is theson of the famous banker and businessman Jahangir Siddiqui. He has servedas director of Airblue airlines, Lucky Cement, Azgard Nine along withseveral other companies. In 2014, he was honoured as a Young Global Leaderby the World Economic Forum.