Washington : Indian-American Atul Keshap has been confirmed as the US Ambassador to Sri Lanka and Maldives, becoming the second Indian-origin diplomat to be posted to the region after Richard Rahul Verma.
Keshap, 44, a former official at the US Embassy in India, was yesterday confirmed by the US senate as the country’s envoy which would be his first Ambassadorial posting.
He is currently working as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in South and Central Asian Affairs Bureau of State Department. He joined the Foreign Service in 1994.
Keshap and Verma, the US envoy to India, both trace their origin to Punjab.
He was the deputy political counselor at the US Embassy in New Delhi from 2005 to 2008.
Keshap also served as special assistant for the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia for the under secretary of state for political affairs. In 2003, he moved to the White House as director for North African and Middle Eastern regional affairs on the staff of the National Security Council.
He was also the director for UN Human Rights in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs from 2008 to 2010. His father, Keshap Chander Sen, who was from Punjab, was a UN development economist working in Nigeria where Keshap was born in June, 1971.
Lalit K Jha