President appoints new envoys to India, Saudi Arabia

President Mohamed Muizzu on Wednesday appointed a High Commissioner to India and an Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

The president appointed Aishath Azeema as the High Commissioner to India, and Ahmed Sareer as the Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Azeema served as the head of the India division at the foreign ministry in her capacity as additional secretary.

Previously, she held the position of ambassador to China from 2019 to 2023. Before her ambassadorial role in China, she served as deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom.

In addition to these roles, Azeema has held several senior positions within the foreign ministry, including additional secretary, joint secretary, and minister counsellor at the Maldivian high commission in India.

Sareer was serving as Ambassador-at-Large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 1 October.

Since February 1986, he has held a career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, having served as the Foreign Secretary from June 2017 to November 2018; as Maldives Ambassador to the United States of America and concurrently Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 2012 to 2017; and as Maldives High Commissioner to the People’s Republic of Bangladesh from 2009 to 2012.

He also held diplomatic postings at Maldives Missions in Colombo (1988-1989); London (2008-2009), Brussels (2008) and Colombo (2006-2008).

During his foreign service career, he has undertaken more than 75 official visits abroad representing the Maldives.

From 1 November 2018 to 30 September, he had taken an extended no-pay leave from the Government of Maldives to serve at the General Secretariat of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

From 2000 to 2003, he represented the Maldives as Director at the Secretariat of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), headquartered in Kathmandu, Nepal. 

He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences from the University of Canberra, Australia and a Masters degree in Foreign Affairs and Trade from Monash University, Australia. He attained a Certificate on Foreign Service having attended a training programme conducted by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.