Islamabad: Tasneem Aslam, former spokesperson for the Pakistan Foreign Office (FO), has claimed that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had barred the FO from commenting against India and its "spy" Kulbhushan Jadhav who is in detention in Pakistan.

“Nawaz Sharif did not want to say anything against India and Jadhav through the Foreign Office,” she claimed during an interview with a YouTube channel being run by an Islamabad-based journalist Isa Naqvi, Dawn said. 

Ms Aslam worked as Foreign Office spokesperson twice — first from 2005 to 2007 during the regime of Gen Pervez Musharraf and then during the last Pakistan Muslim League-Sharif government between 2013 and 2017.

Ms Aslam said Mr Sharif had business interests in India and he did not meet leaders of India-held Kashmir’s political party Hurriyat Conferences when he visited India as the prime minister. “Usually, every prime minister of Pakistan meets Hurriyat leaders but Nawaz Sharif did not meet them when he visited India.” Sharif had visited India in 2014.