Biographical Note

New permanent representative of United Kingdom presents credentials

 

(Based on information provided by the Protocol and Liaison Service.)

Sir John Sawers, the new Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations, today presented his credentials to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

For the four years before his appointment, Sir John was Political Director of his country’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, a post in which he advised the Foreign Secretary on worldwide political and security issues, as well as negotiated on the Secretary’s behalf with international partners in the Group of Eight, European Union and United Nations.  He was particularly closely involved with policy matters relating to Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans.

Prior to that post, Sir John served two years as ambassador to Cairo and three months as his Government’s Special Representative in Baghdad.  From 1999 to 2001, he served as Foreign Affairs Adviser to the Prime Minister on matters relating to foreign and defence policy, while also working closely with international counterparts on issues such as implementation of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland.

He spent the period from 1995 to 1998 in the United States, first as an international fellow at Harvard University for a year and then as head of foreign and defence policy issues for his country’s Embassy in Washington, DC.  In the two and a half years before that time, he served as Principal Private Secretary for his country’s Foreign Secretary, while the international scene was dominated by the war in Bosnia, the crises in the Middle East and the debate in Britain over the European Union.

He served in South Africa from 1988 to 1991 during the first part of the transition from apartheid.  His early career included service on behalf of his country in Yemen and Syria.

He studied physics and philosophy at Nottingham University, and also spent periods at Saint Andrews and Witwatersrand ( Johannesburg) Universities.

He is 52 years old, married with three children.

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For information media • not an official record