Gaddam Dharmendra appointed as India's Ambassador to Iran

New Delhi, Nov 5: The Ministry of External Affairs on Monday (November 5) announced that senior diplomat Gaddam Dharmendra has been appointed as India's next Ambassador to Iran. Gaddam Dharmendra will be replacing Saurabh Kumar, who was appointed India's ambassador to Myanmar in October.

Dharmendra is a 1990-batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer and at present, additional secretary in the MEA in New Delhi.

Dharmendra is expected to take up the assignment shortly, an MEA statement said.

His appointment comes at a time when the global focus is on oil imports from Iran as the US on Monday imposed "the toughest ever" sanctions aimed at altering the Iranian regime's "behaviour". India and China -- the two biggest buyers of Iranian crude, have so far appear to have skipped the punitive American sanctions targeting the Iranian oil and financial sectors.

India and China are believed to be among the eight countries that have been given the rare exemptions from the Iranian sanctions that kicked off today. Iranian oil exports have fallen by about a million barrels a day in that time, though India and China have continued to purchase it. Most Europeans, as well as Japan and South Korea, have stopped.

OneIndia News with PTI inputs