King presents instruments of appointment to envoys

KUALA LUMPUR (Bernama): Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah presented the instruments of appointment to eight new Malaysian envoys assigned to missions abroad in a ceremony held at the Istana Negara here.

Leading the list of recipients was deputy secretary-general of Bilateral Affairs of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Raja Datuk Nurshirwan Zainal Abidin, who will serve as Malaysian ambassador to China.

Raja Nurshirwan began his service as administrative and diplomatic officer in 1994 and has held several positions including deputy director-general of the Asean-Malaysia National Secretariat (2010-2014) and Malaysian ambassador to Iran (2014-2017).

Datuk Nor’Aini Abd Hamid, who was the deputy secretary-general (management services) in Wisma Putra, will serve as High Commissioner of Malaysia to Canada. 

She was also the second secretary at the Malaysian embassy in Germany (1997-2001) and former Malaysian ambassador to Uzbekistan.

Normal Muhammad, the former Malaysian ambassador to Turkmenistan, has been appointed Malaysian ambassador to the Philippines.

He held the post of undersecretary for the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and Regional Cooperation division since 2018, and as second secretary at the Malaysian embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina from 1995 to 1998.

Besides this, Malaysian ambassador to Algeria since 2014, Mohd Tarid Sufian, has been appointed Malaysian ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

He also served as the ministry's division secretary (policy and strategy planner ( 2010-2011) and deputy director-general of the Policy Planning and Coordination Department (2011-2014).

The credentials were also presented to Zakaria Nasir, who was the head of Competency Enhancement Centre of Institute Diplomacy and Foreign Relations since 2016, and now appointed as Malaysian ambassador to Ireland.

Malaysian Permanent Representative to Asean, Datuk Shariffah Norhana Syed Mustaffa, was appointed Malaysian ambassador to Vietnam, while Datuk Abd Razak Abdul Wahab (to Saudi Arabia) and Abdullah Zawai Tahir (to Romania) completed the list. 

At the ceremony on Thursday (July 18), the King also received the credentials of five foreign envoys to Malaysia.

They are Maldives ambassador Visam Ali; Mohamed Lamine Conde (Guinea); Ardasher Saeed Jaafar Qodri (Tajikistan); Bolat Barievich Imanbayev (Kazakhstan) and Jaroslav Chlebo (Slovakia). - Bernama