NEW DELHI, Aug 31: India on Thursday named Shiv Shankar Menon, its high commissioner in Islamabad as the new foreign secretary, signalling a more comprehensive engagement with neighbouring countries, including China and Pakistan while keeping a keen eye on the Middle East.

Mr Menon, who will supersede several senior diplomats in October, has been India’s envoy in Beijing and speaks fluent Mandarin. He also has the only known experience of supervising an Indian prime minister’s summit meetings with two Pakistani leaders. Mr Menon was envoy in Colombo, which hosted the Saarc summit in July 1998. There he was closely involved in the first post Pokharan-Chaghai summit talks between premiers Nawaz Sharief and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Although it was unofficially declared to be a ‘zero summit’, the meeting subsequently led to the Lahore bus journey by Mr Vajpayee.

The envoy found himself shaping an India-Pakistan summit again in January 2004.

Mr Menon is expected to take charge as foreign secretary in October.