NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF CHILE PRESENTS CREDENTIALS TO DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF UNOG

NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF CHILE PRESENTS CREDENTIALS TO DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF UNOG

Carlos Portales Cifuentes, the new Permanent Representative of Chile to the United Nations Office at Geneva, today presented his credentials to Sergei Ordzhonikidze, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva.

Prior to his appointment to Geneva, Mr. Portales Cifuentes had been serving since 2002 as Director-General of Foreign Policy of the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a post he also held from 1990 to 1994. In 2001 and 2002, he was the Director of Planning at the Ministry. He was Permanent Representative of Chile to the Organization of American States (OAS) from 1997 to 2000. Concurrently, he was Chile’s Ambassador to Dominica, Grenada, Santa Lucia and Saint Kitts and Nevis. In 1998 and 1999, Mr. Portales Cifuentes served as Chair of the Hemispherical Security Commission of the OAS Standing Committee, and of the Special Committee on Inter-American Summits Management. Also from 1998 to 2000 and from 2002 to date, he was Coordinator for Chile of the Summits of the Americas and of the Summits Implementation and Review Group. From 2002 to 2008, he was Coordinator for Chile of the Group of Rio, a post also held from 1990 to 1994. He was Coordinator for Chile of the Ibero-American Summit from 2002 to 2008. Between 1990 and 2007, he served as the member of various Chilean delegations to the General Assembly and the OAS General Assembly.

A career diplomat, Mr. Portales Cifuentes was Chile’s Ambassador to Mexico from 1994 to 1997. During the same period, he was Representative of Chile to the Organization for the Proscription of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean and to the Inter-American Institute for Studies on Indigenous Populations.

Mr. Portales Cifuentes has a Bachelor’s degree in Legal and Social Sciences from the University of Chile (1966-1971) and an M Sc in Political Sciences from the University of Stanford in California, where he did his doctoral studies. A Specialist in International Relations, Ambassador Portales has been a Professor Research Fellow at the Latin-American Faculty for Social Sciences. He was a visiting Professor at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill from 1987 to 1988 and lecturer of postgraduate courses a the Institute for International Studies of the University of Chile. He had published a number of publications. He is married with two children.