India is likely to appoint its High Commissioner to the United Kingdom Navtej Sarna as the next Ambassador to the United Staes, highly placed sources said on Friday.

The 59-year-old career diplomat may take up the high-profile posting as the incumbent Ambassador Arun Singh's term is coming to an end, the sources said.

Sarna, who joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1980, had earlier served as Secretary (West) and the Indian External Affairs spokesperson -- one of the longest stints from 2002 to 2008 -- in Delhi.

He has also penned a number of fiction and non-fiction books and served as Indian ambassador to Israel from 2008 to 2012, apart from in various embassies in Europe.

Sarna's main task would be to maintain the spirit of the increasingly closer Indo-U.S. relations when the new dispensation comes to office in Washington early next year.

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