Ambassador Alaina Teplitz takes oath to head US mission in Maldives and Sri Lanka

Alaina Teplitz, a senior diplomat of the United States who has been posted to three other countries in South Asia, has been sworn in as the next ambassador to the Maldives, the federal government’s political center, Washington, DC announced on Monday.

Ambassador Teplitz is replacing Ambassador Atul Keshap, who has been immensely vocal about the political unrest in the Maldives and critical of President Abdulla Yameen during his three years in office, as chief of the US government’s mission to both Maldives and its neighbouring Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.

President Donald Trump appointed the incoming ambassador on 24th May this year. This appointment was passed in Senate on 7th September. Teplitz’s oath was administered by David Hale, Trump’s Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.

Teplitz, who joined the foreign service in 1991, has served as ambassador to Nepal and has served in US missions in Afghanistan as well as Bangladesh. Though Maldives and the United States established diplomatic relations in 1966, there are no US diplomatic offices in the country and the embassy is based in Colombo, Sri Lanka.