Sohail Mahmood on Wednesday took charge as Pakistan’s high commissioner to India as Abdul Basit announced an early retirement, ANI reported.

Mahmood had joined Pakistan’s Foreign Service in 1985. He has previously served as a diplomat in New York, Washington, Ankara and Bangkok. He has never served in India before.

Basit was appointed the high commissioner in 2014 and his tenure was scheduled to end in April 2018. In July, Basit had requested to be allowed to retire before his tenure ends, which the then Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif accepted.

Reports have suggested that Basit had appealed to retire as he was not ready to work under his junior Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua, who was promoted to a top bureaucratic post in March this year.