Washington, May 4 (PTI) Alice G Wells, the Trump administration's point person for South and Central Asia and a votary for strong US-India strategic ties, will retire this month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has announced, as he thanked the senior diplomat for her "wise counsel and dedicated efforts" to bolster America's bilateral relations with the countries in the region.

Wells, the Acting Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, has also served as a political officer at the US Embassy in India and Pakistan. She has studied Hindi and Urdu.

Pompeo on Sunday took to Twitter to announce her retirement as he praised the veteran career foreign service officer for rendering her valuable services.

"After 31 years of dedicated service, Ambassador Alice Wells will retire from @StateDept this month. I will miss Alice's wise counsel and dedicated efforts to build relationships and address challenges across South and Central Asia,” he said.

“I personally came to admire Ambassador Wells' dedication to our team's mission and her dogged pursuit of American excellence. We commend her service and wish her the best,” Pompeo said.

She will be succeeded by new acting assistant secretary Tom Vajda. A career foreign service official, he among others has served as the US consul general in Mumbai.

This is for the first time that the position of Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia has remained vacant for more than three years.

Indian-American Nisha Desai Biswal was the last one to serve in this position. President Donald Trump had nominated Robert William for this position but he withdrew himself.

However, for all practical purposes, Wells led the Bureau of South and Central Asia in the State Department for the entire term of the Trump administration, serving under the two secretaries of State; Rex Tillerson and Pompeo.

In January, Wells visited India and met senior government officials to advance the US-India strategic global partnership following the success of the 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue in December in Washington.

A votary of strong US-India ties, including enhanced military cooperation amidst China flexing its muscles in the Indo-Pacific and in the Indian Ocean, she has frequently highlighted the commonalities between the world's biggest democracy and the world's oldest democracy.

She has said the quality and frequency of India-US naval cooperation, especially the information sharing, have reached unprecedented levels with continued progress on defence cooperation, peacekeeping operations, space, counterterrorism, trade, people-to-people initiatives, and more.

Terming the bilateral ties as "unshakeable", she said that the US and India enjoy a close partnership that grows stronger day by day.

Her significant travel to New Delhi happened a month ahead of President Donald Trump's state visit to India on February 24 and 25 at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Wells has also been wary of some of the Indian government's decisions on Jammu and Kashmir and the Citizenship Amendment Act and has publicly raised them.

New Delhi has defended its move, saying Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and the issue was strictly internal to the country, and the special status provisions only gave rise to terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Indian government has maintained that the CAA, which was passed by Parliament, is an internal matter of the country and stressed that the goal is to protect the oppressed minorities of neighbouring countries.

Wells has also been putting pressure on Pakistan to rein-in the terror groups on its soil and help lower tensions with India.

During her tenure, she has expressed concern over terrorist groups continuing to enjoy safe haven in Pakistan and asked the country to do more against "externally oriented" extremist outfits.

She has also been critical of the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a planned network of roads, railways and energy projects linking China's Xinjiang province with Pakistan's Gwadar Port, saying there was no transparency and the firms blacklisted by the World Bank have got contracts which will increase the cash-strapped country's debt burden.

Reacting to the retirement of Wells, South Asia observers here described it as a big loss.

“Amb. Wells has been a principled, effective leader for US diplomacy toward South and Central Asia. She has reinforced the importance of American values in our foreign policy. Congrats, and best wishes!” tweeted Alyssa Ayres from the Council on Foreign Relations and a former State Department diplomat.

Milan Vaishnav from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think-tank termed it as a “big loss for an already depleted State Department”.

Alice Wells is a terrific diplomat, Vaishnav said.

“Big loss. Amb Alice Wells understood the delicate political balance as well as limits of US power in South Asia better than most. Also, she used her influence to shield vulnerable religious minorities in region despite it not being a priority of her boss/this admin,” tweeted Asfandyar Mir from Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation.

“Yes, thank you to the outstanding Alice Wells who ran” Bureau of South and Central Asia for three years, “but, like all other career diplomats in the Trump era, was never nominated to be Assistant Secretary,” tweeted retired diplomat Laura Kennedy.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)