Colombo, August 28: Prasad Kariyawasam, a career diplomat and experienced India hand who was also Colombo’s former envoy to the United Nations, was today appointed as the new Sri Lankan High Commissioner to New Delhi.
The 55-year-old Kariyawasam succeeds Romesh Jayasinghe, who will be the new Foreign Secretary of Sri Lanka.
The appointment has been made by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, a Foreign Ministry statement said here.
An Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kariyawasam, who was also Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, has been nominated to succeed Jayasinghe as Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner in New Delhi, the statement said.
He joined the Sri Lanka Foreign Service in 1981 and has held diplomatic assignments at Sri Lanka Missions in Geneva, Riyadh, Washington and New Delhi, in the latter as the Deputy High Commissioner for Sri Lanka in India.
Jayasinghe will take over as Foreign Secretary from October 1 from Palitha Kohona who has been appointed as Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the UN in New York.
Sri Lanka’s former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and currently a Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kshenuka Senewiratne, has been appointed as Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva.
–Agencies