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Holbrooke may be Obama's special envoy to S Asia

     Washington: US President-elect Barack Obama is considering naming veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke his special envoy to South Asia, officials said. While his chief spokeswoman for national security, Brooke Anderson, did not deny reports that Holbrooke is being considered, she said that Obama will not interfere in the Bush administration's efforts to defuse tensions between India and Pakistan. The Time magazine has described Holbrooke as 'smart and effective but also hard to control and outspoken' and said that as special envoy he will be expected to do 'troubleshooting' in a difficult and complex region. In a recent article in Foreign Affairs magazine, Holbrooke called for a regional diplomatic strategy toward Afghanistan involving Iran, China, India, and Russia. Obama has also stressed the need to resolve the Kashmir dispute and the appointment of a heavyweight US envoy for South Asia would indicate that the president-elect was serious about pursuing this goal. According to the Dawn, Holbrooke hammered out the Dayton accords that ended the war in Bosnia in the 1990s and later served as United Nations ambassador under President Bill Clinton.
- Dec 4, 2008

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