Gilles Tonelli, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, hosted a luncheon at the Hermitage Hotel on Thursday, July 13, for HE Datuk Ibrahim Abdullah, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Malaysia; HE Kristjan Andri Stefansson, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Iceland; HE Alvaro De Soto, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Peru; and HE Ismail Hakki Musa, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Turkey.
The group of four had presented their Letters of Credence to the Sovereign Prince in the morning.
HE Datuk Ibrahim Abdullah was appointed Deputy Director of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) in 1996. From 1998, he was successively Councillor and then Head of Mission, Embassy of Malaysia in Turkey, Sudan and Japan. He became High Commissioner to the Malaysian High Commission in Nigeria in 2003 and then Director of the OIC in 2005. He was promoted to Ambassador in 2008, representing his country in Syria and Germany before assuming the post of Deputy Secretary-General of the ministry of foreign affairs.
A lawyer, HE Kristjan Andri Stefansson was Legal Adviser to the Prime Minister of Iceland from 1994 to 2004, before becoming Minister-Counsellor in the Economic Affairs and Foreign Trade Directorate of the Foreign Ministry. He was promoted Ambassador in 2005 and from 2014 he was Director-General of Legal and Executive Affairs and then Assistant Secretary-General of the Foreign Ministry.
Mr Stefansson is the first Icelandic Ambassador accredited to Monaco.
A career diplomat since 1966, HE Alvaro De Soto held senior executive positions at the United Nations during the tenure of Javier Pérez de Cuéliar, Boutros-Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan. In 1982, he was appointed Special Advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations, becoming a Personal Representative for the peace process in Central America. In 1995, he assumed the post of Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs of the United Nations. He has acted as a mediator in Cyprus and as Special Coordinator in the Middle East peace process.
HE Ismail Hakki Musa was appointed Consul of Turkey to Lyon in 1994. After working at the Sub-Directorate of Bilateral Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1997, he joined the Permanent Delegation of Turkey to the European Communities as Counselor. In 2005, he was Head of the Department for Administrative and Financial Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He became Minister Plenipotentiary in the same Department. He has also held the posts of Consul General in Lyon, Ambassador in Belgium and Under-Secretary of State Deputy to the Prime Minister.