Senior MEA official rushed to New Zealand to assess situation

The external affairs ministry is in touch with Harish Dogra who has resigned as India's high commisioner to New Zealand under controversial circumstances, and has rushed a senior official to Wellington to assess the situation there, a ministry spokesman said in New Delhi Monday.

The senior oficial, Biren Nanda, joint secretary (south) in the external affairs ministry, who is in Wellington, was scheduled to meet Dogra and discuss things with him after he (Dogra) created a stir by going public against Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran and demanding his resignation.

Dogra was protesting against being recalled by New Delhi without assigning any specific reason. He has refused to work under Saran and has gone on leave.

Dogra, a 1972 batch Indian Foreign Service officer, was appointed envoy to New Zealand in June 2004.

The issue came to light when some New Zealand newspapers published letters written by Dogra to the foreign secretary demanding his resignation and questioning his own recall.

The external affairs ministry in a brief statement on April 13 described the charges by Dogra as "scurrilous" and said that circulation of such material was not becoming of a senior member of the Foreign Service.

The Ministry of External Affairs would deal with the matter in accordance with its well established procedures, the statement added.