Sudanese diplomat appointed as AU representative to China
September 3, 2018 (KHARTOUM) Head of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat has announced the appointment of Ambassador Rahmat Allah Mohamed Osman as Permanent Representative of the AU to China, residing in Beijing.
Osman joined the diplomatic corps in 1977 and was Sudan’s permanent envoy to the United Nations from 2014 to 2015.
He was Undersecretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Khartoum from 2010 to 2014. He served as Director-General of the Ministry’s Bilateral and Regional Affairs Department between 2008 and 2010, and of its International Cooperation Department from 2008 to 2009.
He was Ambassador to Venezuela and Argentina between 2006 and 2008, to Chile from 2005 to 2008, and to Brazil from 2004 until 2008. From 2002 to 2003, he served as Director of the Office of the National Negotiator for the Accession of Sudan to the World Trade Organization.
Appointed by the Secretary-General of the Organization of African Unity, Osman served on the regional body’s observer team to the United Nations referendum in Western Sahara from 1999 to 2001. Prior to that, he served as Deputy Director of the International Organizations Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs beginning in 1998.
The Sudanese diplomat was Deputy Head of Mission at his country’s embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 1994 to 1998. Before that, he held the position of Counsellor of the Public Affairs Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1991. Between 1985 and 1991, he served as Deputy Head of Mission in Tunis, Tunisia, from 1990 to 1991.
He served as First Secretary in Brussels, Belgium, between 1985 and 1990, and as Second Secretary at the Ministry’s Economic Department from 1983 to 1985, holding the same rank at Sudan’s Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, between 1980 and 1983. From 1977 to 1980, he was a Third Secretary in the Foreign Ministry.
Osman holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Khartoum (1976) and a master’s in political science from the Institute of African and Asian Studies at the University of Khartoum.
Born in 1953 in Sudan, he is married and has children.
(ST)