U.S. Ambassador to Cyprus: Who Is Kathleen Doherty?

Monday, June 15, 2015

Kathleen Ann Doherty, a career member of the Foreign Service, was nominated to be the next ambassador to Cyprus on March 25, 2015.

 

Doherty, from New York, earned a B.A. from Colgate University in 1985. She worked as a journalist from 1985 to 1989, writing for Inc., Success, American Banker, Healthy Companies and The Naisbitt Group.

 

Doherty earned an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics in 1990. She joined the Foreign Service that year, with her early posts including the Dominican Republic (1990-1992) and Brazil (1993-1995). She served in Washington for five years in the energy and business affairs bureau of the Office of Development Finance and in the Office of Investment Affairs, before serving as special assistant to then-Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott during the Clinton administration.

 

She had her first posting to Rome in 2000 as an economic counselor in the embassy there, remaining until 2004. The following year she began two years in Washington as a senior watch officer on the Operations Center of the State Department, specializing in language training. In 2006, Doherty was sent to Moscow, again as economic counselor, including duties as the embassy’s terrorism financing coordinating officer. In mid-2008 she was transferred to London as an economic counselor.

 

Doherty returned to Washington in 2010 as director of the State Department’s Office of European Union and Regional Affairs and in September 2011 was made deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. She went back to Rome in August 2013 as deputy chief of mission, remaining in that post until her nomination as ambassador.

 

Doherty will have some fence-mending to do when she takes up her post in Nicosia. Her predecessor, John Koenig, was brought home after sending what some in Cyprus perceived as an insensitive Tweet about the visit of President Nicos Anastasiades to Russia. The tweet linked Anastasiades’ meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin with the implication that Putin ordered the death of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.

 

Doherty speaks Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Russian.

-Steve Straehley

 

To Learn More:

Official Announcement

LinkedIn Profile

State Department Cables 2008-2010 (WikiLeaks)

State Department Cables 2006-2008 (WikiLeaks)

Comments

John Barbas 8 years ago
I find it abhorrent that our U.S. Ambassador hosted the Turkish occupation heads in a country which is still occupied. The disgusting terrorist activities in Paris pale by comparison to the horrendous crimes of the Turkish soldiers in Cyprus. Madam Ambassador, you might a well congratulate the assassins of Paris. Your actions in Cyprus are just as offensive.
Chiotellis 9 years ago
It is unfortunate that our new US ambasador to Cyprus is showing the same Insensitivity to the 200000 Refugees from Northern Cyprus including those from my Hometown Kyrenia by hosting the Heads of the occupation force and still there after 40 yrs... With our US tax money Cape Cod
DEMETRIS PETRITIS 9 years ago
Our Ambassador has to help Cyprus in resolving any conflicts regarding oil exploration and drilling in the region. The region is relatively rich in oil and natural gas, that is vital to the economy of both Northern Cyprus and the republic of Cyprus. The Turkish Army intervened in 1974 because the safety of Northern cypriots was at stake at that time. Nowadays there is no such safety issue and relations of the two communities ought to fully normalize.
Pwlambson 9 years ago
More than the tweet, the former ambassador also made a less-than-diplomatic statement prior to his departure that the Cyprus problem didn't arise from Turkey's brutal invasion and ongoing occupation of the northern third of the island republic with 40K troops. Turkey's 1974 invasion resulted in almost 200,000 refugees being driven from their homes, businesses and properties, and the ethnic cleansing of the millenias-old Hellenic cultural presence from the north. His remarks also essentially go against the standing non-recognition policy of the U.S. regarding the illegal Turkish puppet state unilaterally declared by Turkey and colonized by tens of thousands of illegal Turkish settlers in order to change the demography in Turkey's favor.

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