New York sources have stated that US President Barack Obama’s appointee as ambassador to India, Richard Verma, may be ending his New Delhi assignment this month when President-elect Donald Trump takes over on January 20 if an administration directive to non-career diplomats holds. The Washington Post has reported that the Obama administration has asked all “non-career ambassadors to submit their resignations effective with the close of the Obama presidency” on January 20. The newspaper quoted three unidentified officials as confirming that all the ambassadors have complied with the directive.
Meanwhile requests for resignations by non-career diplomats is usually made at the end of a president’s term, they are usually given some additional time to wind up their affairs. This time there was “the additional admonition that the resignations would be blanket and final" and the Post have said according to two officials “the unusually stern and specific directive to ‘political ambassadors’” came at the “behest of the incoming Trump administration.”
Verma, a non-career diplomat, is the first person of Indian descent to be ambassador to India. He did not come up the ranks of the Foreign Service but was recruited in 2009 to be the Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs under Hillary Clinton when she was the Secretary of State.
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