Pak’s Turkey envoy set to replace Basit soon

The Indian Express had first reported that Mahmood is likely to be the next Pakistan’s envoy on February 17.

Islamabad’s Turkey envoy Sohail Mahmood , Pak’s Turkey envoy set to replace Basit, PAKISTAN HIGH Commissioner to India Abdul Basit, Sohail Mahmood, Indian Express News

Sohail Mahmood(Left), a career diplomat, joined Pakistan’s foreign service in 1985.

PAKISTAN HIGH Commissioner to India Abdul Basit is set to be replaced soon with Islamabad’s Turkey envoy Sohail Mahmood expected to come to Delhi next month. The Indian Express had first reported that Mahmood is likely to be the next Pakistan’s envoy on February 17. Sohail Mahmood, a career diplomat, joined Pakistan’s foreign service in 1985.

Mahmood’s first posting abroad was in Ankara, where he served in the Pakistan embassy from 1991-1994. Since then, he has served in various Pakistan missions abroad, including Washington and New York. He was Pakistan’s ambassador to Thailand in 2009-2013.

Before assuming his position in Ankara as envoy, Mahmood was additional secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Islamabad, where he served as Director-General (2005-2009), Director (1995-1998) and Section Officer (1986-1991). He is one of the seniormost officers in Pakistan’s foreign service. Born in 1962, Mahmood holds postgraduate degrees in history and international relations.

While Mahmood hasn’t served in India before, that has hardly been a criterion for selecting Pakistan’s envoy to India. Neither Basit nor his predecessors, Salman Bashir and Shahid Malik, had served in India before being posted as the High Commissioner.

Shubhajit Roy

Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor at The Indian Express, has been a journalist for more than 25 years now. Roy joined The Indian Express in October 2003 and has been reporting on foreign affairs for more than 17 years now. Based in Delhi, he has also led the National government and political bureau at The Indian Express in Delhi — a team of reporters who cover the national government and politics for the newspaper. He has got the Ramnath Goenka Journalism award for Excellence in Journalism ‘2016. He got this award for his coverage of the Holey Bakery attack in Dhaka and its aftermath. He also got the IIMCAA Award for the Journalist of the Year, 2022, (Jury’s special mention) for his coverage of the fall of Kabul in August 2021 — he was one of the few Indian journalists in Kabul and the only mainstream newspaper to have covered the Taliban’s capture of power in mid-August, 2021. ... Read More

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