OTHER DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS

African Union

1640 Wisconsin Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20007

Tel: +1 202 342-1100 | Email: au-washington@africa-union.org

Since November 2020, Zimbabwean diplomat Hilda Suka-Mafudze has represented the 55-member African Union as permanent representative of the AU’s mission in Washington.

A career diplomat whose two decades of experience spans the African continent, SukaMafudze was known as a “quiet champion of democracy.” She was Zimbabwe’s ambassador to both Sudan and South Sudan, and more recently, Malawi.

Ambassador

Hilda SukaMafudze

While in Malawi, Suka-Mafudze chaired the group of 16 regional ambassadors representing the South African Development Community, settling contested national elections among other responsibilities.

From 2000 to 2005, Suka-Mafudze served as one of the few women in Zimbabwe’s Parliament, where she was an influential voice on behalf of poor people, women, youth, children and other marginalized groups.

The ambassador has a BS in sociology and gender development from Women’s University of Africa, located in Marondera, Zimbabwe, and an MA in international relations from England’s University of Leicester. Besides her native English, Suka-Mafudze—who is married with four children—speaks French and several southern African languages including Shona and Ndebele.

European Union

2175 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20037

Tel: +1 202 862-9500 | Email: delegation-usa-info@eeas.europa.eu

Since 2019, Greek diplomat Stavros Lambrinidis has been the European Union’s ambassador to the United States.

Born in Athens in 1962, Lambrinidis studied economics and political science at Amherst College in Massachusetts, where he learned his bachelor of arts degree in 1984. At Yale, where he obtained his law degree in 1988, Lambrinidis was managing editor of the Yale Journal of International Law.

He joined Wilmer Cutler & Pickering in 1988, specializing in international trade, transactions and arbitration until he left in 1993. Back in Greece, Lambrinidis was chief of staff to the foreign minister (1996); secretary-general of the Greek Foreign Ministry responsible for overseas Greeks (1996-99); and director-general of the International Olympic Truce Centre (2000-04).

From 2004 to 2011, Lambrinidis served in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, with the Greek Social Democratic Party (PASOK). Following a brief stint in 2011 as Greek foreign minister, in 2012 Lambrinidis became the EU’s special representative for human rights—a position he held until his February 2019 appointment in Washington.

TAIWAN (REPUBLIC OF CHINA)

Ambassador

Salah A. Sarhan

League of Arab States

1100 17th Street NW, Suite #602, Washington, DC 20036

Tel: +1 202 265-3210 | Email: ambassador@arableague-us.org

Veteran Saudi diplomat Salah A. Sarhan represents the 22-member League of Arab States (formerly the Arab League) in Washington.

Born in Mecca, Sarhan joined Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a diplomatic attaché in 1977, in the department of bilateral economic relations. He served as third secretary in economic research at the Saudi Embassy in London (1979-85), and as second secretary in Saudi Arabia’s permanent mission to the UN in Geneva (1985-88).

Sarhan became director of the Foreign Ministry’s department of international economic relations in 1989 and was promoted in 1997 to deputy director of the department of international organizations.

From 1998 to 2001, he was deputy ambassador at Saudi Arabia’s permanent mission to the Arab League in Cairo. He was then named Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Ethiopia, and in 2005 became director of judicial affairs at the Foreign Ministry, serving there until 2008. The following year, Sarhan became Saudi Arabia’s first ambassador to Vietnam and nonresident ambassador to Cambodia. He held that position until 2014 and his reassignment to Washington.

Taipei Economic & Cultural Representative Office (TECRO)

4201 Wisconsin Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20016

Tel: +1 202 895-1800 | Email: usa@mofa.gov.tw

Bi-khim Hsiao became Taiwan’s top envoy to the United States in July 2020, after serving as a senior advisor to the president at the National Security Council of Taiwan. In the absence of full diplomatic relations with the US, her official title here is representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO).

Hsiao previously served four terms in the Taiwan Legislature, representing overseas citizens for the first term, and then the constituents of Taipei City and Hualien County through different terms. She also chaired the USA Caucus in the Legislative Yuan.

She began her political career as director of the international affairs division of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). After Taiwan’s first democratic change of government in 2000, she became a presidential advisor, and was international spokeswoman for all DPP presidential elections between 2000 and 2012.

Born in the Japanese city of Kobe, Hsiao grew up in Tainan, a city in southern Taiwan. She has a bachelor’s degree in East Asian studies from Ohio’s Oberlin College, and a master’s in political science from New York’s Columbia University.