Pakistan on Monday dismissed as "misleading" a media report that a former top aide and confidante of Prime Minister Imran Khan made a secret trip to Israel, a country with which Islamabad does not have diplomatic relations.
Hebrew newspaper Israel Hayom in a report, quoting an unnamed source in Islamabad, claimed that former special assistant to the prime minister on overseas Pakistanis, Zulfi Bukhari, travelled to the Jewish country last November and also met the Mossad chief.
Bukhari has dismissed the news by saying that he didn't go to Israel.
“Funny bit is Pakistani paper says I went to Israel based on ‘Israeli news source’ & Israeli paper says I went to Israel based on a ‘Pakistani source’-wonder who this imaginative Pakistani source is. Apparently, I’m the only one who was kept out of the loop,” he tweeted.
The Foreign Office also rejected the report.
“These reports are baseless and misleading. No such visit to Israel has been undertaken,” it said. Pakistan has no diplomatic ties with Israel and its passport clearly states that it was not for travel to that country. However, Bukhari should not have any such problems as he is also a British national and can easily travel to Israel if he wanted.
“As reiterated earlier, there is no change in Pakistan’s principled position. Pakistan has consistently called for a two-state solution, with pre-1967 borders and Al-Quds Sharif as the capital of Palestinian State,” the FO said.