The Washington Diplomat

Slovenia
His Excellency Roman Kirn

Roman Kirn was appointed ambassador of Slovenia to the United States on May 26, 2009.

Ambassador Kirn most recently served as director of the Department for North and Latin America and the Caribbean for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and head of trans-Atlantic relations and preparations of the EU-U.S. Summit during Slovenia’s European Union presidency in June 2008. He was also Slovenia’s permanent representative to the United Nations in New York (2002-06) – during which time he was vice president of the U.N. General Assembly, vice president of the 2005 NPT Review Conference, among other positions – as well as ambassador and permanent representative to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE; 2000-02).

Ambassador Kirn began his diplomatic career at the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1977, serving on the Committee on Foreign Relations of Slovenia in Ljubljana from 1978 to 1980.

Ambassador Kirn rejoined the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1980 and served as first secretary at the Yugoslav Embassy in Burma, returning to Slovenia in 1984 to head up regional cooperation at the Committee on Foreign Affairs of Slovenia until 1990. After Slovenia gained its independence in 1991, Ambassador Kirn was appointed director of the Multilateral Relations Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 1992 to 1996, he served as minister counselor at the Slovenian Embassy in the Czech Republic, after which he was appointed state undersecretary for multilateral affairs in the Foreign Ministry, dealing primarily with U.N.- and NATO-related issues. He was also a member to a number of Slovenian delegations at the U.N. General Assembly, head of delegation to the Ottawa process that negotiated the convention on the prohibition of anti-personnel landmines, and co-founder of the International Trust Fund for demining and mine-victims assistance Southeast Europe, in addition to leading Slovenia’s candidacy to the U.N. Security Council nonpermanent seat in 1997.

Ambassador Kirn holds a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the University of Ljubljana, and he speaks English, French, Czech and Serbo-Croatian.

He is married to Jovana Kirn and has two children.

Embassy
of Slovenia
1525 New Hampshire
Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

Tel: (202) 667-5363
Fax: (202) 667-4563