SL Ambassador to the Netherlands assumes duties

The newly-appointed Ambassador-designate of Sri Lanka to the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Rekha Gunasekera assumed duties at the Embassy of Sri Lanka in the Netherlands last Friday (10). Her assumption of duties was marked by a simple ceremony organised by the embassy staff.

In her address to the staff, the Ambassador-designate referred to the longstanding, historical and vibrant bilateral relations between Sri Lanka and the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the need to further elevate trade, investment, and tourism ties, as well as cultural cooperation. On the multilateral aspect, she stressed the need to increase cooperation with the OPCW as well as other international organizations in The Hague.

Ambassador-designate Rekha Gunasekera, an officer of the Sri Lanka Foreign Service, has served in various portfolios during her career spanning 21 years. She most recently served as the Director General, United Nations and Human Rights of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She has experience in both bilateral and multilateral affairs having served at the country’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York, the Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, the Lankan Embassy in Beijing and our High Commission in London.

Ambassador-designate Gunasekera has a Bachelor of Science (First Class, Honours) from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, and a Master’s degree in International Relations (Peace and Conflict Studies) from the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Japan. She is the winner of the prestigious Professor Stanley Wijesundera Memorial Gold Medal for Bio- Chemistry & Molecular Biology in 1999.