Biographical Note

New Permanent Representative of iceland Presents Credentials

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

The new Permanent Representative of Iceland, Gunnar Pálsson, today presented his credentials to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today.

Prior to his new appointment, Mr. Pálsson was his country’s ambassador to India, as well as Sri Lanka, Singapore, Nepal, Maldives and Mauritius (2007-2008).  From 2002 to 2006 he was Director of the Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs at Iceland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs.  Earlier, he was Chairman of the Senior Arctic Officials of the Arctic Council (2002-2004); and served as ambassador and permanent representative of Iceland to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Western European Union in Brussels and Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague (1998-2002).  He was Iceland’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York from 1994 to 1998.

Having started his career as a journalist at the daily Morgunbladid in 1977, Mr. Pálsson joined the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 1984 and then became a member of the international staff of NATO in Brussels in 1986.  In 1988, he returned to Reykjavik as a Counsellor at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, where he became a Deputy Under-Secretary for Political Affairs in 1992, remaining in that position until 1994.  Prior to that, he was an ambassador to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and participated in negotiations on Confidence and Security-Building Measures and Conventional Forces in Europe (1991-1992).

Mr. Pálsson holds a bachelor’s degree in politics and philosophy and a master’s degree in philosophy from University College in Dublin, as well as a PhD in political science from the University at Buffalo in New York.  He has also undertaken graduate studies in philosophy at Karl Eberhardt’s University, Tübingen.

Born on 25 January 1955 in Reykjavik, Iceland, Mr. Pálsson is married, with four children.

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For information media • not an official record