New Permanent Representative of Syria Pays Courtesy Call on Secretary-General

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

The new Permanent Representative of Syria to the United Nations, Bassam Sabbagh, paid a courtesy call on UN Secretary-General António Guterres today.  He earlier presented his credentials to the Secretariat on 23 February.  (See Press Release BIO/5382.)

Before his latest appointment, Mr. Sabbagh was his country’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Vienna and Ambassador to Austria, Slovakia and Slovenia from 2010 to 2020.

During the same period, he served as Resident Representative to other international organizations in Vienna, including the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).  Additionally, he was Syria’s Permanent Representative to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague from 2013 to 2020.

Before that Mr. Sabbagh was Chief of Cabinet in the Office of the Minister for Foreign Affairs in Damascus from 2006 to 2010; Political Adviser at the Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York from 2001 to 2006; Alternate Director in the Office of the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2000 to 2001; Second Secretary at the Embassy in Washington, D.C., from 1995 to 2000; and Desk Officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1994 to 1995.

Mr. Sabbagh received a Bachelor of Arts from the Higher Institute for Political Science in Syria in 1990 and studied international relations at Aleppo University in 1993.

He was born on 1 January 1969.