The United States embassy in Islamabad created a political storm on Wednesday by retweeting PML-N’s Ahsan Iqbal’s tweet which attacked the Prime Minister, equating him with dictators around the world.
The embassy’s official handle had retweeted the opposition leader, who had quoted a Washington Post article calling Trump’s defeat a blow to dictators, and added that “we have one [dictator] in Pakistan too and he would be shown the way out soon.”
The tweet was quickly deleted from the embassy’s timeline.
However, it has been noted by many across the country and was unanimously condemned as a disrespect of diplomatic norms and an attempt to interfere in the internal politics of Pakistan.
Twitter users called out the US embassy, asking it to apologise with the hashtag #ApologiseUSEmbassy – which was soon trending in Pakistan.
Federal Cabinet Minister Shireen Mazari also took a dig at the embassy, saying it was still working on the “Trumpian mode”, and that the action was against norms of diplomacy.
Similar comments came from other politicians and commentators.
A while ago, the US embassy tweeted an apology saying the account was accessed “without authorization” and that it doesn’t endorse posting political messages
