Kathleen just a stop-gap till Obama finds new envoy to India

Kathleen Stephens, a career foreign service officer who has never served in India but was United States Ambassador to South Korea from 2008 to 2011, will only be a stop-gap charge at Roosevelt House in New Delhi, till President Obama names a new envoy to India.

Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Nisha Desai Biswal, defending the posting of Stephens as an interim measure until a permanent ambassador is nominated, said, the Indo-US relationship “is an important relationship and at an important time, and we wanted to reflect that by sending one of our most senior foreign service officers”, to New Delhi.

In an interaction with media persons, Biswal asked why it should take so long to put an ambassador in place in Delhi or even nominate one, two months after Nancy Powell suddenly announced her retirement on the eve of India’s elections, said, ‘We have a whole process in place for selection, vetting, nomination and confirmation,’ by the US Senate’.

‘Generally speaking, that process takes month and so, there is certainly a process underway knowing how important this relationship is, knowing what a critical time it is, as the new government comes into place,’ she said.

Thus, Biswal said, ‘We have sent or selected as Charge for those interim months, while the selection and nomination process unfolds, Kathy Stephens, who is a former ambassador to Korea, has a strong history in the US Foreign Service, has served as the principal deputy secretary in the East Asia bureau, and has great knowledge and expertise on trade and economic matters.’

‘She will be going out to India shortly, and we hope that she will be there the first week of June if all of the papers and process moves forward,’ Biswal added.