Ambassador Istvan Venczel

Ambassador Istvan Venczel of Hungary is the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Uzbekistan. Born on 6 June 1945 in Szolnok, Hungary, he studied at the Faculty of Law of the University of Sciences in Szeged, before being awarded a scholarship for the Institute of International Relations, Moscow, from where he graduated in 1969. He defended his doctoral dissertation on relations between Iran and Afghanistan in 1987.

He has held a number of diplomatic posts with the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs throughout his career, including at the Hungarian Embassies in Tehran (1971), Kabul (1978-82) and Tripoli (1985-89). He was Hungarian Ambassador in Pakistan in 1992-96 and Deputy Director for Policy Planning and Information at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1997-99.

He has extensive OSCE experience, having been Head of the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat in 2000-01 and Head of the Centre in Almaty in 2002-03. His most recent post before becoming OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Uzbekistan was Hungarian Ambassador in Iran, which he held from 2003-07.

Ambassador Venczel is married with three children. He speaks English, Russian and Persian.