ISLAMABAD, April 25: Amba-ssador to China Salman Bashir has been appointed foreign secretary. He will assume the new charge in June.

Mr Bashir will succeed Riaz Mohammad Khan who has requested the government to be relieved for personal and health reasons. Mr Khan’s term is to expire in October.

Mr Bashir joined the Foreign Service in 1976. Before his posting in Beijing in 2005, he was additional secretary, Asia Pacific Division, at the Foreign Office.

He has also served as Pakistan’s ambassador to Denmark and at Pakistani missions in Geneva and the OIC Secretariat in Jeddah.

—Staff Reporter