In the
2002 general elections, Khar was elected as a member of the
National Assembly, representing the
NA-177 (Muzaffargarh-II) constituency in Punjab. Her father, veteran politician
Ghulam Noor Rabbani Khar, had represented the constituency previously, but he and most of the members of her family had been disqualified. A new law requiring all parliamentary candidates to hold a university degree meant that he and they could not run that year. With the financial support of her father who addressed rallies on her behalf, she campaigned on a newly founded
PML-Q platform against the
Pakistan Muslim League,
Economic and Finance positions Khar came to prominence during the Shaukat Aziz government and was appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Economic Affairs and Statistics in 2003, and being named Minister of State for Economic Affairs the following year, a post she retained until 2007. As minister of state, she worked with international relief funds and charities after the deadly
2005 earthquake in
Northern Pakistan, and also worked on proposals for the
Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India pipeline. In 2007, she made an unsuccessful attempt to renew her alliance with the PML-Q, but the party denied her a ticket platform to campaign for re-election in 2008. She was subsequently invited to join the
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and successfully campaigned for her constituency for a second time.
Minister of State for Finance and Economic Affairs After her 2008 re-election, she was appointed Minister of State for Finance and Economic Affairs in the
cabinet of Yousaf Raza Gillani.
Foreign minister Hillary Clinton Khar was appointed as
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs—the deputy head of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs—on 11 February 2011, as part of Gillani's cabinet reshuffle. Gillani did not reappoint
Shah Mehmood Qureshi as Foreign Minister, and that position was left empty. In the absence of any Foreign Minister, she was the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs for five months until her formal appointment as Foreign Minister on 18 July; she was sworn in on 19 July, becoming the youngest and first female Minister of Foreign Affairs.
President Asif Ali Zardari, who succeeded
Pervez Musharraf in 2008, said the appointment was "a demonstration of the government's commitment to bring women into the mainstream of national life". She was appointed foreign minister during a difficult time in Pakistan: when the country's
armed forces were
confronting extreme elements in
Western Pakistan and
anti-American emotions ran high over the
Raymond Davis incident. Shortly after her appointment, Khar visited
India and held peace talks with her Indian counterpart,
S. M. Krishna. Relations between the two countries had been suspended following the
2008 Mumbai attacks, and did not resume until February 2011, five months before her visit. The Indian media reported extensively on her fashion and appearance, including her
Birkin bag, sunglasses,
Jimmy Choo stilettos and pearl necklaces. She held talks with leaders of the Hurriyat Conference before meeting Indian government representatives, a decision which was criticised by the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India's biggest political party, which said it was a breach of protocol and demanded an inquiry into the matter. She later led an unsuccessful move to grant India
most favoured nation status. In August 2011 she visited
China and held talks with
Yang Jiechi, the Chinese Foreign Minister.
Hindustan Times reported that, in contrast to her reception in India, she was largely ignored by the Chinese media. The
NATO strike which killed 24 Pakistani troops was one of the most notable incidents during her tenure and Foreign Minister Khar stated that the government of Pakistan and defense committees had approved a measure—similar to a parliamentary resolution put forward after
bin Laden's May 2011 death—that formally bars
NATO and
ISAF forces from using Pakistan's supply routes. Pakistan continued to demand a U.S. apology, and on 6 June 2012, Khar argued that "higher principles should take precedence over politically popular considerations", and challenged the U.S. to "live up to its democratic ideals by respecting the will of Pakistan’s elected legislature". On 15 December 2011, when the United States suspended financial aid to Pakistan, Khar warned that their actions would be responsible for losing the war on terror, since Pakistan could not win without U.S. assistance. Conference in 2013. On 21 January 2012, Khar secretly left for
Moscow with an agenda of strengthening
bilateral relations, with Pakistan's relationship with
the United States strained. On this trip invited the Russian leadership to visit Pakistan and to maintain bilateral cooperation and commitment and support for "Afghan-led and Afghan-owned" efforts for peace in the country. On 12 August 2012, while speaking at the
16th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in
Tehran, Khar maintained that regional stability was imperiled due to the increasing tensions relating to
Iran's nuclear program, and a "peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible on the basis of reciprocal confidence-building measures and security assurances against external threats". During her short visit to
Bangladesh on 9 November 2012, Khar was approached by the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh
Dipu Moni to sort out
post-independence issues between the countries. Khar called for the two countries to move ahead together. This ended Khar's two-year role as Foreign Minister. In April 2013, Khar announced that she was standing down at the next general election, so that her father, who had previously been ineligible to stand as a candidate, could succeed her. The condition requiring parliamentary candidates to hold a university degree, which had led to Khar replacing her father in 2002, had been lifted since the most recent general election. The PPP came second in the election, losing 74 seats; Khar's father was defeated in his bid to regain his former seat, although he was able to regain the seat in a by-election held later that year.
Significance She is widely credited for her role as the youngest and first ever female Foreign Minister in Pakistan. She assumed her role in July 2011 as the 26th Foreign Minister of Pakistan. During her two-year-long appointment as the country's foreign minister she attracted significant global attention on her status as Pakistan's first woman foreign minister. She was interviewed by
Charlie Rose,
CBS News and
Washington Post among others. She served as a high-ranking member of the
Central Executive Committee of the Pakistan Peoples Party from 2008 until 2013, when she retired from politics. She is widely regarded as one of the highest ranking women in Pakistani politics.
Post-ministerial career Since standing down, Khar has been an active public speaker. In an interview with
Al Jazeera in December 2015, she accused the US government supporting military regimes in Pakistan. She has written
op-ed's for
Newsweek Pakistan and was interviewed by
Mehdi Hasan at the
Oxford Union in December 2015. In June 2016, she appeared on
Jirga with Saleem Safi, speaking out against Pakistan's aggressive stance in the
Kashmir conflict.
Return to politics in 2018 She was elected on a reserved seat for women in the
National Assembly in the
2018 General Election by the
Pakistan People's Party. On 19 April 2022 she was inducted in
Shehbaz Ministry having the post of
Minister of state for foreign affairs. In a Pakistani memo
leaked by the Pentagon, she argues that Pakistan can “no longer try to maintain a middle ground between China and the United States.” It warns that the instinct to preserve Pakistan's partnership with the United States would ultimately sacrifice the full benefits of the country's “real strategic” partnership with China. ==Personal life==