Ambassador Alaina Teplitz, the United States ambassador to Maldives, has presented her credentials to President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih.

Teplitz replaced Ambassador Atul Keshap, who was immensely vocal about the political unrest in the Maldives and critical of President Abdulla Yameen. Ambassador Keshap was chief of the US mission to both Maldives and neighbouring Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka for three years.

President Donald Trump appointed the 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 in October.

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.