Pakistan’s high commissioner to India Sohail Mahmood will be the country’s new foreign secretary, foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi announced on Sunday.

Qureshi, while talking to reporters in Multan, said the decision to appoint Mahmood as foreign secretary had been taken following discussions with Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Incumbent foreign secretary Tehmina Janjua will retire on April 16.

It is not clear who will replace Mahmood in India.

Qureshi said he spoke to Mahmood over telephone on Saturday and congratulated him over his new appointment.

“He is a seasoned diplomat…. Even now, after the Pulwama incident took place, he came to the headquarters for consultations and I benefited from his experience,” Qureshi said, referring to the February 14 terror attack in Kashmir in which .

Forty CRPF soldiers traveling on the Jammu-Srinagar highway were killed when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into a convoy bus. PTI