By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: US President Donald Trump has nominated Natalie Baker, the career diplomat who has run the US embassy in Islamabad since January 2025, to become America’s next ambassador to Pakistan, the White House said.
In its statement, the White House named her as “Natalie Baker, of Texas, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan”.
Her nomination has been sent to the Senate, where the foreign relations committee will review it before the full chamber votes. It was not immediately clear when the committee would hold a hearing. Until she is confirmed, Baker remains chargé d’affaires. She has held that title since 10 January 2025.
The nomination reaches the Senate a week after the 3 November US midterm elections. It also arrives while Pakistan is deeply involved in Washington’s dealings with Tehran.
The US-Iran war began on 28 February, and a ceasefire took hold on 8 April. Islamabad then hosted 21 hours of face-to-face talks led by the US vice-president, JD Vance, which ended without an agreement. Pakistan’s foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, has described a memorandum signed on 18 June as a foundation for further negotiations. No settlement has followed. Dar said on Tuesday that Pakistan would keep working to bring Washington and Tehran back to the table. Iran’s ambassador to Islamabad said last month that Tehran remained open to talks under the June deal.
Trump has publicly defended Pakistan’s role as intermediary. In May he did so after the Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally, said he did not trust Islamabad to facilitate diplomacy with Iran. The White House statement did not address the mediation. Pakistani and American officials have also been discussing trade, investment and security.
Baker is the first nominee for the post since the departure of Donald Blome, who left Islamabad in January 2025 in what the US government called a routine Foreign Service rotation. Blome was nominated by Joe Biden. When he took up the post in 2022, he was the first full-time ambassador to Pakistan in about three years. The position had been vacant since David Hale left in August 2018. Blome is the last Senate-confirmed US ambassador to Pakistan.
Baker joined the Islamabad embassy as deputy chief of mission in August 2024 and took over the mission when Blome left. Last month the State Department made her permanent chargé d’affaires and appointed Catherine Connell as her deputy.
Her career has been spent largely in the Middle East and North Africa. She was deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Doha from August 2021 to July 2024. Before that she directed the State Department’s Office of North African Affairs, within the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.
She has also served as deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affaires at the US Mission to Libya, and as deputy director of the Iran Regional Presence Office at the US consulate in Dubai. As economic counsellor in Kuwait, she worked with the Defence Department on the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.
From 2009 to 2011 she was political and economic counsellor in Libya, while relations between Washington and Tripoli were being normalised after a gap of nearly 30 years. She stayed until the Libyan revolution forced the embassy to evacuate in February 2011.
Earlier postings include special assistant in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, consular officer in Islamabad and cultural affairs officer in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.
Baker holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She was a distinguished graduate of the National War College in 2017. She speaks Arabic, Spanish, Farsi and Russian.
Copyright © 2021 Independent Pakistan | All rights reserved
