India's Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee was named Tuesday to the country's long-vacant foreign minister post, months after the previous minister stepped down over the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal, AP reported. Mukherjee, the second-most senior lawmaker in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government, returns to the External Affairs Ministry after a gap of 10 years. He is 70. Another top Congress party leader, A. K. Antony, 65, took over as the Defense Minister after he was sworn in as a Cabinet minister by President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam on Tuesday, a statement by the president's office said. Antony served as India's Civil Supplies Minister in the Congress party government in 1990s. India has been without a foreign minister for nearly a year after former External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh resigned over his alleged involvement in Iraq's oil-for-food scandal. Singh was the first senior official in the world forced out over the scandal when he stepped down in November last year.