New Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka Presents Credentials to the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva

Himalee Subhashini Arunatilaka, the new Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations Office at Geneva, today presented her credentials to Tatiana Valovaya, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva.

Prior to her appointment to Geneva, Ms. Arunatilaka served as Ambassador of Sri Lanka to Nepal since October 2019. Ms. Arunatilaka is a career diplomat and has held numerous postings since 1998, including Director General of the African Affairs, Counter Terrorism and International Security Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from January to October 2019; Deputy High Commissioner at the Sri Lankan High Commission in Canberra, Australia, with concurrent accreditation to New Zealand, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Vanuatu from August 2015 to December 2018; and Minister Counsellor and Head of Chancery at the Sri Lankan Embassy in France, with concurrent accreditation to Spain and Portugal, from September 2006 to December 2009.

Ms. Arunatilaka also served as Acting Director General for Political Affairs at the Europe, Commonwealth of Independent States and Americas Division and Director of the Counter Terrorism Unit from April 2011 to January 2015, and Director of the Public Communications Division from December 2009 to September 2010. She served as First Secretary at the Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka to the United Nations Office at Geneva from November 2000 to December 2003. She has travelled as part of Sri Lankan delegations to many international and bilateral meetings.

Ms. Arunatilaka has a Master of Arts from Middlebury College in France (1996) and a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in French, from the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee in the United States (1994). She was born on 9 March 1969 and is married.

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CR22.002E