Senator Ishaq Dar has said that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government will resume negotiations with US authorities for the return of Aafia Siddique, a Pakistani neuroscientist who has been imprisoned in the United States for more than ten years.
Dar stated in his Senate speech that the PML-N government met with US officials in 2013 and that then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif made a request at the White House, but it was not approved.
"I had three detailed meetings with Antony Blinken [secretary of state], and I put all my efforts into the return of our daughter to Pakistan and gave many solutions, but, unfortunately, nothing happened," the senator added.
Dar stated that solving this issue will be a top priority for the new cabinet and that every effort will be made to reengage the United States government on this matter.
He stated that her sentence might possibly be served in Pakistan and that the US administration would be petitioned to relocate her there.
Senator Mushtaq Ahmad of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) said that after visiting the US, he proposed four political possibilities for Siddiqui's return to Pakistan.
He also expressed his wish to send Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Senator Azam Nazeer Tarar the same letter, which contained four political options for ensuring Afia Siddiqui's release.
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist educated in the United States, was sentenced to 86 years in prison in 2010 by a New York federal district court on accusations of attempted murder and assault coming from an incident during an interview with US authorities in Ghazni, Afghanistan, which she denied.