A statement released on Friday said US President-elect Joe Biden had inducted a second Pakistani American, Salman Ahmed, into his Foreign Policy team.
Mr. Ahmed, who served as head of strategic planning within the Obama National Security Council , is joining the US State Department as director policy planning.
Last month, Mr Biden announced that another Pakistani American, Ali Zaidi, will join his team as Deputy National Climate Adviser.
Mr Ahmed was chief of staff of the US Mission to the United Nations and senior policy adviser to the US Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
Before joining the Department of State in 2009, Mr Ahmed served as a professor and research scholar at Princeton University’s Wilson School of Public and world affairs and worked for nearly fifteen years at the United Nations , including posts as chief of staff for the top of UN Peacekeeping Operations.
Mr Biden has also inducted two women from the Indian-occupied Kashmir into his team. Sameera Fazili, an American of Kashmiri origin, has been appointed the deputy director of the National Economic Council (NEC). In December 2020, another Kashmir-born woman, Aisha Shah, was inducted into Biden’s team as partnership manager of the White House Digital Strategy team.
Another Indian Muslim, Uzra Zeya, has been appointed Undersecretary of State for the control of weapons, democracy and human rights.
