Pakistan: New cabinet takes oath

ISLAMABAD - 4 August 2017: Members of the new federal cabinet took oath at a ceremony organized at the Presidency in Islamabad on Friday morning, Dawn newspaper reported.

Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain administered the oath to 46 members of Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi's cabinet comprising mostly old faces but with some reshuffled portfolios.

The cabinet comprises 28 federal ministers and 18 state ministers.

The names of the cabinet members and their portfolios were finalized by PM Abbasi after six-hour-long consultations with his predecessor Nawaz Sharif and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in Murree on Thursday.

Khawaja Muhammad Asif, earlier the defense minister in Nawaz Sharif's government, will serve as the country’s new foreign minister. The country remained without a foreign minister after 2013 when Sharif came into power.

Ahsan Iqbal, former minister of planning, will take charge of the key interior ministry in Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi's government.

Last Friday, Nawaz Sharif resigned as prime minister of Pakistan following a decision by the country's Supreme Court to disqualify him from office.

The ruling came after a probe into his family's wealth following the 2015 Panama Papers dump linking Sharif's children to offshore companies.