The Foreign Office Wednesday dismissed a letter circulating on social media as “fake and baseless”; falsely giving an impression as if the foreign minister had reprimanded the Pakistan ambassador to the United States of America.

A statement from the FO spokesperson while responding to media queries said, “We have seen the text of a letter circulating in the social media allegedly written by the Foreign Minister to the Ambassador of Pakistan in Washington. The letter in circulation is completely fake and baseless."

The fake letter circulated on Twitter and other Social media platforms, mostly from those accounts that had been earlier running the #SanctionPakistan hashtag and other fake news related to Pakistan.

The letter was simultaneously picked up by several Indian media houses, that in the past few months have been churning out a huge amount of fake news against Pakistan, particularly about Pakistan’s alleged role in Panjshir.

The purported letter expressed concern over the performance of the Pakistani diplomat over Pakistan–US ties and urged him to play his part in getting a better response from the US.

The timing of the release of the fake letter incidentally coincides with the visit of the US Deputy Secretary of the State to Pakistan and seems an abortive attempt at impacting the ties between the two countries.

The poorly drafted letter demanding Ambassador Asad to “guarantee strategic relevance on all diplomatic forums” soon after its circulation was dismissed as an absolute fake by the Twitterati.

Former Ambassador Jalil Abbas Jilani in a tweet said “This is a fake letter.”

“Asad Majeed is an outstanding Ambassador. In this age of fake news, we need to check the veracity of information being circulated through social media,” he said.