Mohammad Hassan Soroosh Yousufzai
Ambassador of Afghanistan
Ambassador Yousufzal joined the foreign ministry in 2002 and has served in several capacities, including as director-general for economic co-operation.
He was chargé d’affaires in Vienna; counsellor in Washington, D.C.; deputy director-general for economic affairs; director of regional co-operation; director of human rights and head of the political and economic affairs sections at the embassy in Tokyo. In his previous positions, Ambassador Soroosh wrote many papers and reports and played a role in the design of new policies pertaining to regional economic co-operation, trade and transit, to name a few.
He has served as a lecturer at the foreign ministry’s Institute of Diplomacy and has also served as a media analyst at the presidential palace in Kabul.
He holds a master’s of arts from the Japanese National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. He is married and has one son and one daughter.
Peiwu Cong
Ambassador of China
Ambassador Cong’s posting to Canada is a return. He was in Ottawa for three years, beginning in 2000.
The envoy joined the foreign ministry in 1992 and became a third secretary and deputy division director for the Department of American and Oceanic Affairs in 1993. Between 2000 and 2003, he was first secretary in Canada.
By 2003, he returned to the Department of American and Oceanic Affairs as first secretary and deputy division director and was promoted to counsellor in the same division. The Department of American and Oceanic Affairs oversees relations with the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In 2009, he became a minister-counsellor in Britain and returned to the foreign ministry in 2014 as director-general of the Department of American and Oceanic Affairs for five years. The ambassador is married and has one daughter.
Yasuhisa Kawamura
Ambassador of Japan
His predecessor left for a post at the UN and Ambassador Kawamura comes to Ottawa from the UN where he was deputy permanent representative.
The ambassador joined the foreign ministry in 1981 and was sent to the U.S. as second secretary in 1984. He returned to headquarters as deputy director of the North American division and then became principal deputy director of the Southeast Asia division. In 1993, he became first secretary at the permanent mission to international organizations in Geneva and two years later, he became counsellor at the embassy in Indonesia. In 1999, he was director of the international press division and in 2002, became counsellor at the EU mission.
In 2008, he became deputy press secretary for the foreign minister and was then posted as deputy consul-general, to New York. In 2013, he was deputy chief of mission at the embassy in India. He served as press secretary for two years after that, before being sent to the UN as ambassador.
Majed Thalji Salem Alqatarneh
Ambassador of Jordan
Ambassador Alqatarneh became a diplomatic attaché in 1992 and was appointed as a senior congressional affairs officer in 1995. Two years later, he became consul at the embassy in Washington, D.C., and in 1999, he became head of the political section in Tel Aviv, where he stayed until 2003.
He was director of the office of the minister of the Royal Hashemite Court for a year before becoming the foreign affairs co-ordinator for the prime minister. He was assistant head of protocol before he was named director of the programming unit in King Abdullah II’s office. He was then chargé d’affaires in Britain before becoming director of the North American division in 2011. He was consul-general in Saudi Arabia before returning as director of the Arab and Middle East department. He was spokesman before this appointment to Canada.
He is married and has two sons and two daughters.
Reem Mohammad Khaled Zaid Al Khaled
Ambassador of Kuwait
Ambassador Khaled Zaid Al Khaled joined the foreign ministry in 1988 as a political researcher after completing a political science degree at Kuwait University. She later finished a master’s in international studies at the University of London.
In 1999, she was a political researcher in international organizations for two years before moving to Kuwait’s permanent mission to the international organizations headquartered in Vienna in 2001. By 2004, she was first secretary at the mission in Vienna and was appointed first secretary at the embassy in Washington two years later. She stayed there for four years, before being named ambassador to Chile, during which time she was also accredited to Ecuador and Peru. Between late 2015 and this posting, she was assistant foreign minister for the Americas.
The ambassador speaks Arabic, English, French and Spanish.
Romy Vasquez
Ambassador of Panama
For Romy Vasquez, this appointment will feel like déjà vu. She was already Panama’s ambassador to Canada from 2005 to 2009.
Until this appointment, she has been working in consulting for the last six years — managing business strategies, building partnerships and practising high-level diplomacy to help organizations meet their business goals and strategic plans.
Prior to consulting, she was a senior partner with Sigma Management Advisors as well as president of Saranik y Asociados. Between 2011 and 2013, she was in-country manager for Joint Venture Panama Inc. and prior to that, she was the Panama desk head for DHL Global Forwarding for a year. She was a senior partner with Panama Consultancy Services Inc. between 2009 and 2010 and founder and CEO of SPicups, S.A. de C.V. in Mexico City from 1995 to 2004.
She has a master’s in business administration from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México and speaks Spanish, English and French.
Prosper Higiro
High Commissioner for Rwanda
Ambassador Higiro has spent his career in government. In 1987, he joined the education ministry as a teacher of accounting and mathematics. In 1989, he joined the ministry of industry and small- and medium-sized enterprises as director of planning. In 1992, he became director of cabinet at the ministry of commerce, industry and mining and two years later, became that department’s minister.
From 1997 to 1999, he worked as a consultant and became a member of parliament in 1999. In 2003, he joined the Senate as vice-president and member of the pan-African parliament. From 2012 to 2018, he worked as secretary-general for the forum of parliaments of the international conference on the Great Lakes Region. From June 2018 until this appointment, he was a part-time consultant on conflict management in the Great Lakes Region.
He has a bachelor’s degree in management from the National University of Rwanda. He speaks Kinyarwanda, French and English.
Orlando José Viera-Blanco
Ambassador of Venezuela
Ambassador Viera-Blanco is a lawyer and human rights activist. He graduated from Universidad Católica de Venezuela in Caracas, then undertook graduate studies in commercial law and intellectual property. He has a master’s in political science.
He has taught political culture and democratic values in Canadian and Venezuelan institutions and is the senior partner and founder of Viera Blanco & Asociados. He also founded a political communications firm called Data Mining in 2003. He is a regular columnist for El Universal newspaper in Venezuela and often writes for other publications. As a Latin American vice-president for the World Jurist Association, he has participated in several conferences on law and human rights. He is an external adviser to the permanent foreign affairs committee of the National Assembly of Venezuela.
Non-heads of mission
Afghanistan
Sayed Mujtaba Ahmadi
Minister-counsellor
Mohammad Azim Wardak
Counsellor
Australia
Aaron John Carroll
First secretary
Austria
Christian Grinschgl
Counsellor and consul
Hannes Machor
Deputy head of mission
Belarus
Dzmitry Ilyukhin
First secretary
Botswana
Thato Matlho
First secretary
Brazil
Josias Pedrotti Da Rosa
Military attaché
China
Xiaomeng Li
Attaché
Tong Zhang
First secretary
Guanyuan Fu
Attaché
Ming Wei
Attaché
Mingxin Hu
Second secretary
Xia Luo
First secretary
Colombia
Diego Armando Barona Montua
First secretary
Ethiopia
Weldemichael Berhane Gebremeskel
First secretary
Finland
Juha Petteri Seppala
Defence, military, naval and air attaché
Guatemala
Mendez Leonardo Marcia Carlotta
Counsellor
Hungary
Alexandra Petyko
Attaché
India
Rajesh Ranjan
Attaché
Anshuman Gaur
Deputy High Commissioner
Rajeev Madaan
Counsellor
Rabab A. Jameel Al-Shouk
Attaché
Ireland
John Boylan
First secretary
Italy
Francesco Frattini
Attaché
Jamaica
Carla Lee Thompson-Watson
Attaché
Simmornetta Veronica Richards-Lawrence
Attaché
Japan
Koji Hirohata
First secretary
Lebanon
Vanessa Naddaf
Attaché
Mexico
Gina Gissela Marquez Cordova
First secretary
Jose Antonio Gomez Rodriguez
Military and air attaché
Mateo Blas Palas
Attaché
Roberto Carlos Sanchez Vazquez
Deputy military and air attaché
Nigeria
Azubuike Onyemaechi Mozia
Minister-counsellor
Pakistan
Atiya Iqbal
Counsellor
Poland
Sebastian Szyszczynski
Second Secretary
Romania
Anamaria Banu
First Secretary
Saudi Arabia
Abdullah Ali A. Alnashar
Attaché
Menahi M. N. Almutairi
Third secretary
Khaled Abdullah A. Alotaibi
Attaché
Abdulrahman Saleh A. Alqamzi
Attaché
Thailand
Sununta Ruankaeo
Second secretary
Tunisia
Mounir Fellah
Attaché
Turkey
Cagdas Mutlu
Second secretary
Emre Cantekin
Second secretary
Uganda
Richard Mpuga
Attaché
Sam Muzoora Muhwezi
Second counsellor
Gloria Batera Kyeswa Ssegobe
Attaché
United States of America
Christopher Paul Taylor
Attaché
Joshua Aaron Blanc Smith
Second secretary and consul
Vietnam
Trung Dung Nguyen
First Secretary
