The government has appointed a number of new ambassadors to serve in foreign countries and changed the portfolio of a number of others, information published in the country’s official journal Magyar Közlöny on Thursday suggests.
Hungary’s current ambassador to Slovenia and founding member of the now-defunct SZDSZ party István Szent-Iványi will be replaced by Prague-educated economist Edit Szilágyiné Bátorfi, a former deputy department head at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and national coordinator of the Visegrád Group.
Anna Sikó, Hungary’s former ambassador to Australia who has been described by the press as “lacking routine”, is to be replaced by former MP for Siófok Attila László Gruber, who will also represent the country in New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa.
Hungary’s embassy in Amman, Jordan, will be headed by Csaba Czibere instead of Béla Jungbert, and ambassador to Pretoria Béla László will be replaced by András László Király. Hungary’s ambassador to South Africa will now represent the country not only in Swaziland, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Botswana and Zambia, but also in Angola, Mauritius and Madagascar.
Ambassador to Nairobi Sándor Kocsis, who also represented the country in Ethiopia, Uganda, Djibouti, Tanzania, Burundi, Ruanda, the Central African Republic and Somalia, has been replaced by László Eduárd Máthé, with Ethiopia, Uganda, Djibouti, Tanzania, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo belonging to his portfolio.
Balázs Csuday, who has been appointed as ambassador to Ecuador, will also represent Hungary in Colombia and Venezuela. Ambassador to Athens Eszter Sándorfi’s portfolio has been extended to cover Cyprus after the Hungarian embassy in the country has been closed, and Gábor Kiss, the head of the Hungarian embassy in Ankara, will also serve Afghanistan after Antal Drágos, the ambassador stationed in the country, was recalled.
Csaba Kőrösi, former Hungarian permanent representative to the UN in New York, has been replaced by Katalin Bogyay, the former leader of Hungary’s UNESCO representation. The mandate of Zoltán Cséfalvay, who leads Hungary’s permanent representation to the OECD in Paris, has been extended to cover UNESCO as well.
via index.hu
photo: kormany.hu