US President Donald Trump has nominated John Bass, the US ambassador to Turkey, as the new ambassador to war-torn Afghanistan.
In a statement on the White House website on Thursday, the Trump administration announced the nomination of individuals to the administration, including “John R. Bass of New York to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.”
Bass, who is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service in the rank of minister-counselor, has served as a US diplomat since 1988. He is currently ambassador to the Republic of Turkey, a position he has held since 2014. He also served as ambassador to the Republic of Georgia from 2009 to 2012.
The US Embassy in Kabul is currently under the leadership of the chargé d’ affaires, Hugo Llorens.
According to CNN, Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have faced criticism over the pace of State Department nominations. South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham took the two to task in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in early July, citing a lack of diplomatic leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a particular cause for concern.