No plans to move SRAP office to White House: official

The Trump administration has ruled out moving the office of the Special Representative of Afghanistan and Pakistan from the State Department to the White House.
Alice Wells, Acting Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs and Acting Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, was responding to reports that there are plans to shift the SRAP office from the State Department to the White House.
"I am not aware of a measure to move SRAP to the White House," Wells said.
Wells, however, said SRAP has been reintegrated with the South and Central Asia Bureau of the State Department.
"Within the State Department we have completed a reintegration, a combination of the South and Central Asian bureau with the Afghanistan and Pakistan office. And this has been an initiative that the State Department has sought since 2016," she said.

"It reflects very much this administration's view that the answer to Afghanistan is a regional one that we have to look beyond the stovepipe of Af-Pak and understand how the region is or as a whole is going to contribute to this stabilising," said Wells, who temporarily has been entrusted with the task of heading both the South and Central Asia and office of SRAP.

Wells was recently in the region with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
The SRAP Office was created in early 2009, within weeks of Barack Obama becoming the US president.
High-profile American diplomat Richard Holbrook was the first Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, which worked independently of the South and central Asia Bureau and reported directly to the Secretary of State.