Pakistan accedes to Apostille Convention on foreign public documents

Foreign public documents authenticated by Apostille can now be directly presented to concerned authorities without any other attestation requirement, says Foreign Office

Pakistan has acceded to the Hague Convention abolishing the requirement of legalization for foreign public documents — Apostille Convention — of 1961, the Foreign Office said Friday.

An Apostille is a certificate that authenticates the signature of a public official on a document for use in another country.

International acceptance of documents originating in Pakistan and in other developing countries had been a major issue that required attention.

So foreign public documents authenticated by Apostille can now be directly presented to the concerned authorities without any other attestation requirement, the FO statement read.

The FO statement added that in line with the obligations as contracting state of the Convention, concerned authorities of Pakistan will now accept the Foreign Apostille Certificates issued by the members, contracting States of the convention from the date of entry into force without any requirement of attestation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or Pakistan missions abroad.

The process of issuance of Apostille Certificates by Pakistan will also commence in a few months upon completion of necessary legislation and other requirements, it said.

Meanwhile, normal attestation services will continue as usual at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, camp offices, and Pakistan missions abroad.

US regional drone hub in Pakistan is just speculation

Pakistan on Thursday brushed aside the speculation that it was ready to allow a ‘regional drone hub’ for the United States on its territory as part of its continuing dialogue on counterterrorism.

“There was no discussion on the topic (regional drone hub). It was not on the agenda and it was not discussed and, therefore, there is no need for speculation in that matter,” said the Foreign Office spokeswoman during the weekly media briefing here.

Instead, she explained, Pakistan was very encouraged by the recent dialogue on counterterrorism with the US. “It was a good opportunity for the two sides to discuss counterterrorism issues, as the challenge of terrorism is a challenge for the entire world. The topics that we covered included cooperation at multilateral forums, cyber security, and countering violent extremism. Of course, the discussion was also held on capacity-building matters, especially in anti-money laundering. As you know, Pakistan has already developed a very robust mechanism following the FATF process to curb money laundering and financial flows to terrorist organizations,” she said.