Washington, February 13 (HS)US President Donald Trump has nominated Paul Kapoor as the chief diplomat for South Asian affairs. Indian-origin Paul Kapoor is currently a professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the United States Naval Postgraduate School.

Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center, shared this information on X. He has said that South Asian security scholar Paul Kapoor has been nominated by President Trump to replace Donald Lu. Kapoor is a strong supporter of the US-India partnership and a harsh critic of Pakistan. If approved by the Senate, he will replace Donald Lu. The US State Department confirmed in January that the term of Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu ended on January 17, 2025. The Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs looks after US foreign policy as well as matters related to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Earlier, he served as the Policy Planning Staff of the US State Department during the year 2020-21. In this department, Kapoor has worked on matters related to South and Central Asia, Indo-Pacific strategy and US-India relations. He is also the co-author of ‘India, Pakistan and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in South Asia’ and co-editor of ‘The Challenges of Nuclear Security: US and Indian Perspectives’. Kapoor has a PhD from the University of Chicago.

Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar