NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF AUSTRIA PRESENTS CREDENTIALS
Press Release
BIO/3242
NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF AUSTRIA PRESENTS CREDENTIALS
19990907 Biographical Note(Based on information received from the Protocol and Liaison Service.)
Gerhard Pfanzelter, the new Permanent Representative of Austria to the United Nations, presented his credentials to Secretary General Kofi Annan today.
Prior to his current appointment, Mr. Pfanzelter served as Head of the Department for International Organizations at his countrys Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs. He had occupied that position since 1993, when he finished a four-year term as Austrias Ambassador to Syria. Before that -- from 1983 to 1989 -- he was his countrys Ambassador to Senegal, Gambia, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Guinea and Mauritania.
Mr. Pfanzelters diplomatic career began in 1969, when he started work in the Cabinet of the Foreign Minister of Austria. In 1972, he was appointed First Secretary at the Austrian Embassy in Italy, where he stayed until 1975. From 1975 to 1979, he worked as Counsellor and Deputy Chief of his countrys Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. Upon his return to Austria in 1979, he took the position of Deputy Director of the United Nations Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Head of Policy Coordination Unit. He remained at that post until 1983.
Mr. Pfanzelter took his law degree at the University of Innsbruck in 1966. In 1965, he also studied international law at the University of Strasbourg, France. Later, he attended the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University Bologna Center, and in 1972, he received a Master of Arts degree in International Relations from the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C.
Born in Innsbruck, Austria, in 1943, Mr. Pfanzelter is married and has three children.
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