Successor named to Geert-Hinrich Ahrens as Head of OSCE Presence in Albania

VIENNA, 7 August 2002 - A Finnish diplomat has been named to succeed the current Head of the OSCE Presence in Albania, Ambassador Geert-Hinrich Ahrens, who will relinquish his post after more than three years of distinguished service on 31 August.

The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Martins da Cruz, has designated the current Finnish Ambassador to Croatia, Osmo Lipponen, to take up the post on 1 September.

Ambassador Ahrens, a German career diplomat who speaks most south-east European languages, including Albanian, was appointed Head of the OSCE Presence in Albania by the then Chairman-in-Office, Norwegian Foreign Minister Knut Vollebaek, on 2 August 1999.

Besides a tour of duty in his country's Belgrade Embassy, Ambassador Ahrens' broad experience of south-eastern Europe included his appointment, in September 1991, as Ambassador-at-Large at the International Peace Conference on the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague. From August 1992 to February 1996, he was Ambassador-at-Large at the Geneva Conference on the Former Yugoslavia. In April and June 1999, Ambassador Ahrens was named as Special Envoy of the European Union Presidency to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

The incoming Head of Presence is also a career diplomat, and has been Finland's Ambassador in Zagreb since 1998. He was formerly Consul-General in St Petersburg and has also served at the Finnish diplomatic missions in Geneva, Tokyo, Paris and Moscow. His brother, Paavo Lipponen, is the long-serving Prime Minister of Finland (since 1995).