Luis Ayllón
The Council of Ministers yesterday approved the appointment of eight new ambassadors, including Ricardo López-Aranda, who will replace Silvia Cortes at the Embassy in Kiev, as The Diplomat reported.
The replacement at the Embassy in Ukraine comes a month after Silvia Cortes, who had been in the post for almost five years, posted some photos on her Twitter account with the text: “Proud to work for Spain helping our Ukrainian friends. Glory to Ukraine”. In one of the photographs, the ambassador could be seen in a working office, in which the window was covered with sandbags. The other shows a mattress lying on the floor in what is supposed to be her bedroom in the laundry room in the basement of a hotel near the embassy’s offices.
In diplomatic circles, the tweet was interpreted as a way for the ambassador to draw attention to the lack of security at an embassy to which she returned on 21 April, after having had to leave with a large group of Spaniards following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
López-Aranda was until last year ambassador to Côte d’Ivoire and is currently in Washington developing a programme with the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
A diplomat since 1997, López Aranda headed the Analysis and Forecasting Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation from 2014 to 2018. Previously, he was Deputy Representative to the Political and Security Committee of the EU and to the Western European Union, worked in the International Department of the Presidency of the Government, was Deputy Director General of Foreign Policy and Common Security and was stationed at the Embassies in Managua and Pretoria.
Furthermore, the Council of Ministers appointed Mar Fernández-Palacios as the new ambassador to Brazil. Until now, she had been ambassador to Nicaragua, although she had been in Spain since August last year, after being recalled for consultations following a clash of reproaches between the Spanish government and Daniel Ortega’s regime.
Mar Fernández-Palacios, who replaces Fernando García Casas, entered the diplomatic service in October 1991, and has been posted to the embassies in Ukraine, China, Cuba and Morocco, as well as to Spain’s Permanent Representation to NATO. Between 1998 and 2002, she was posted to the Embassy in Brazil as Cultural and Cooperation Counsellor. She has also been Deputy Director General for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
The Council of Ministers also appointed Guillermo Kirkpatrick, until now head of mission in Honduras, as reported by The Diplomat, as the new ambassador to South Korea.
Kirkpatrick, who has been a diplomat since 1992, was previously posted in Seoul, as well as in the embassies in Bulgaria, China, Venezuela, Uruguay and Japan. He was also Assistant Director-General for Disarmament and Assistant Director-General for Andean Countries in the Directorate-General for Ibero-America and the Caribbean.
His post in Honduras will be filled by Diego Nuño García, who entered the diplomatic service in 2000 and has been Deputy Director General for Migration Affairs in Foreign Affairs, and Deputy Director General for International Relations, Immigration and Aliens in Home Affairs, as well as Deputy Director General for Multilateral and Horizontal Affairs in Sub-Saharan Africa. He has also been posted to Algeria, Guatemala and Colombia and to the permanent representations to NATO and the EU.
To take charge of the embassy in Qatar, as this website also reported, the government has appointed Javier María Carbajosa, a diplomat since 1985 and former ambassador to Pakistan and Trinidad and Tobago. He has also been posted to Mauritania, Belgium, Ecuador, the United States, the United Kingdom and Algeria, and has been Ambassador-at-Large for Migration Issues.
The new ambassador to Malaysia will be José Luis Pardo, a diplomat since 1993, who has been ambassador to Niger, as well as counsellor for Euro-Mediterranean Affairs, deputy director general for External Action and EU Trade Affairs and ambassador-at-large for Migration Issues, among other things.
The last two appointments are in Africa, namely in Cape Verde and Namibia. For Cape Verde, the Council of Ministers has appointed Ana Paredes, who entered the diplomatic service in 1991 and has previously been posted to the embassies in Seoul, Moscow and Beijing and to Spain’s permanent representations to the United Nations Office in Geneva and New York, and as deputy permanent delegate to the OECD in Paris.
Finally, the new ambassador to Namibia will be Alberto de la Calle, a diplomat since 1998, who was until recently assigned to the Cabinet of the Minister of Foreign Affairs as deputy director, and who previously held posts in the embassies in Kenya, the United Arab Emirates and Ecuador.
