DC Week (7 of 8): Meet the Ambassadors

Wow! I'm amazed that Javier the Intern found this spinning globe for us!

Today, we are going to list 20 ambassadors representing their respective nations in Washington, D.C. (between our two blogs) We must apologize to the likes of Iraqi ambassador Faiy Lukman and Finnish ambassador Ritav Koukku-Ronde for not finding a slot for them.

And, on our sister blog, we will name ten other ten ambassadors, including Dutch ambassador Rudolf Bekink, who we mentioned on this blog last week.

On our sister blog, we also jokingly suggested that Cong. Morgan Griffith (R-Va) meet with Turkish ambassador Namik Tan (pictured top) for lunch at Ezme, a Turkish restaurant in Washington, D.C. This is the link for that particular entry:
http://politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com/2013/10/dc-week-teaser-perhaps-cong-morgan.html

http://ezmedc.com/

The joke was that with a government shutdown, perhaps members of Congress could engage in some activities they never can while working on Capitol Hill. But, as it turns, both the House and Senate members are burning the proverbial midnight oil.

The ambassador pictured below is Jan Mattysen, the Belgian ambassador to the United States. We had a coin flip conducted by Javier the Intern and as a result we chose him over Bulgarian ambassador Elena Poptodorova for the below image.

For the daily goings-on in the diplomat circles, we highly recommend "The Washington Diplomat." http://www.washdiplomat.com/

And we learned from The Washingtonian magazine several months ago that Roble Olhaye of the northwest African country of Djibouti is the longest serving diplomat in the nation's capital.

Here is the list, we have put the serve they started their Washington missions in parantheses:

1. Turkey, Namik Tan, (2010)

2. Slovenia, Bozo Cerar (2013)

3. Israel, Michael Oren, (2009): Oren was actually born in New York.

4. Czech Rep., Petr Gandalovic (2005)

5. Djibouti, Roble Olhaye, (1988)

6. Belgium, Jan Matthysen (2009)

7. Bulgaria, Elena Poptodorva (2010)

8. Egypt, Mohamed M. Tawfik (2012)

9. Azerbaijan, Elin Suleymanov (2006)

10. Mexico, Eduardo Medina-Mora (2007)

http://vasington.be.mfa.gov.tr/

http://www.azembassy.us/

http://74.81.82.58/~bulgaria/

http://www.diplobel.us/