Biographical Note

VALERIY P. KUCHINSKY OF UKRAINE CHAIRMAN OF THIRD COMMITTEE

Valeriy P. Kuchinsky, Permanent Representative of Ukraine, was elected Chairman of the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) for the General Assembly’s fifty-ninth session on 10 June.

Having been named Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations in September 2001, he has also served as Vice-President of the Economic and Social Council from 2003 to 2004.

Prior to his appointment as Permanent Representative, Mr. Kuchinsky served as acting Permanent Representative to the United Nations from November 2000 and as the First Deputy Permanent Representative from December 1999.  He has also served as Ukraine’s Ambassador to Jamaica since 2002 and to Trinidad and Tobago since 2003.

Except from the years of 1975 to 1980 –- when he was a member of the United Nations Secretariat -– Mr. Kuchinsky has worked for his country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 1971.  He has held posts in the Ministry’s Departments of International Organizations and of the Americas, ultimately serving as Director-General of the former from 1997 to 1998 and of the latter from 1998 to 1999.

He has also served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the Ukrainian Embassy to the United States in Washington, D.C., (1992-1997) and as Director of the Ministry’s Department of Arms Control and Disarmament (1990-1992).

Additionally, he has served on the Board of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and as Executive Secretary of the Ukrainian National Commission for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO).

Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, on 25 October 1944, Mr. Kuchinsky is married and has a son and daughter.

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*     This supersedes Press Release BIO/3376 of 12 September 2001.