Foreign diplomacy In 1990, he again joined the foreign ministry and guided
Pakistan Muslim League on foreign policies issues.
Political activism . He briefly left the
Foreign Office (FO) in 1981 and joined the
Independence Movement to step into national politics. He was quickly elevated as the
Secretary-General of the
Tehrik-e-Istiqlal (lit. Independence Movement). He was subsequently arrested on innumerable occasions during his long struggle for democracy. After the
military government of
Zia-ul-Haq went back on its promise to hold general elections in the country, leading political parties got together under the banner of the
Movement for Restoration of Democracy (MRD) for the purpose of holding general elections, restoration of fundamental rights of the citizens, removal of restrictions placed on the free functioning of the press and the establishment of an independent judiciary. He was arrested on numerous occasions for taking part in a movement launched by the political parties in February 1981 for the achievement of the above objectives. In 1983, he departed from the country in opposition response to Zia's purge and started his academic career in France. He briefly return in 1988 after the
mysterious death of Zia-ul-Haq in a plane crash and joined the Foreign service office after being requested by his peers. He took first public participation in
1993 general elections on a Pakistan Muslim League (PML) platform, and was a provisional vice-president of PML, and successfully defended his constituency,
NA-106: Kasur (now NA-142) in the
1997 general elections. He was subsequently appointed as Chairman of the
Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information and Media Development (PSCIMD) and was also a senior member of the
Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Relations (PSCFR). In 1999, after the
1999 military coup d'état, Kasuri had a severe confrontation with
Javed Hashmi who was presiding the PML in absence of Sharif, and defected to the
dissident group headed by
Shuja'at Hussain in 2001. He successfully contested in
2002 general elections from a
NA-142: Kasur. Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri was one of the few members of the Pakistan Muslim League who always expressed his views on all the national issues frankly and fearlessly regardless of whether the government of the day liked his views or not. In 1997, he publicly called for the issue of the impeachment of the former President
Farook Ahmad Leghari, and raised objections on the
Fourteenth Amendment and
Fifteenth Amendment; he expressed very strongly and issued statements on the constitutional changes. He lobbied against the Fifteen Amendment, particularly as originally presented, was strongly objected to by him. It was primarily due to his efforts and his colleagues' lobbying that Sharif's government had to make an amendment in the Fifteenth Amendment, which contained provisions, which were highly detrimental to the federal and democratic structure of the
Constitution. Kasuri put immense effort to stop the bill from becoming into the law in its original shape that he threatened Prime Minister Sharif to resign from the party and his constituency unless the bill was amended, and notably resigned from the party, though resignation was torn up by Sharif in a stormy meeting of the Parliamentary party. ==Foreign minister==