ISLAMABAD, March 3: A ceremony was held at the Islamabad Club to launch Before Memory Fades: Emergence of Pakistan as a Nuclear State by Mian Abdul Waheed on Sunday.

The author has served as Pakistan’s ambassador to Germany and Italy, and as a member of the National Assembly, where he chaired the body’s standing committee on foreign affairs.

Speakers on the occasion, the author said his book would be particularly beneficial for students of foreign affairs, especially about building relationships between countries.

Other speakers mentioned numerous contributions Mian Abdul Waheed had made to Pakistan, including his work as ambassador to Germany, where he was pivotal in convincing the German government to sell a steel mill to Pakistan.

“The government of Pakistan refused the sale because of US pressure,” said Fateh Mohammad Malik, noting that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto subsequently purchased a mill from Russia.

Telling the gathering that “only a few people can be said to have changed the fate of a nation,” Mian Abdul Waheed claimed that Pakistan’s nuclear capability was a pivotal moment in the country’s history. Inamul Haq, who worked in Pakistan’s nuclear programme, recommended that the author be made minister of foreign affairs. — A Reporter