Who is Kyle Scott, America's new ambassador in Belgrade?

Who is Kyle Scott, America's new ambassador in Belgrade?

He was appointed by President Obama on September 15 2015, he testified before the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on December 5 (along with his colleagues that were appointed ambassadors in Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Malta, respectively). The Senate confirmed his appointment on December 9. Finally, he is going to be sweared in at the U.S. State Department on January 29, while his arrival to Belgrade is expected in the first days of February.

Like all of his predecessors, he is also a career US Foreign Service diplomat. Incoming Ambassador Scott has been in the US Foreign Service for 35 years. His previous postings were in Israel, Switzerland, Croatia. He has also occupied the post of political counselor in Moscow, Budapest, and afterwards in the U.S. Mission to European Union in Brussels. He was Deputy Head of U.S. OSCE Mission in Vienna (2005-2009), while his most recent post was U.S. General Consul in Milan (2011-2014).

Between his missions abroad, he had several assignments within the U.S. State Department, engaging among other in multilateral cooperation. He was also Director for Russia (2009-2011), and during his term of office, negotiations on the new START Agreement on downsizing stocks of nuclear weapons and long-range bombers were launched.

In a nutshell, a highly experienced diplomat is coming, who used to deal with almost all essential issues within U.S.-European relations, including political, security and multilateral issues. He knows Europe very well, as well as our region. His posting in Brussels on the EU, as well as in Moscow, and on the OSCE Vienna, gives him deep insights and experience for a prudent approach to his first ambassadorial mission.

It is customary in all U.S. state institutions that its staff in the course of their careers get a chance to spend a year or more in academic and research institutions. Kyle Scott spent a year at the Hoover Institution, at Stanford University in 1994-95, while last year, he assumed a role of Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund where I had chance to get to know him well and work with him.

Kyle Scott is married and he is a father of two grown-up sons. He graduated German Language and Literature with Russian Language and Literature at Arizona State University. He speaks Russian, German, Hungarian, Italian, French, Croatian and Serbian fluently.

In his testimony to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, he underlined the support to Serbia in the process of its EU integration, the support to the dialogue between Belgrade – Pristina, pointing out the significance of regional cooperation, the issues of building democracy and strengthening the rule of law, underlining the significant role of Serbia in the peacekeeping missions within UN and EU, as well as the recently concluded Individual Action Plan for Partnership with NATO. He highlighted economic-trade relations, the need to continue with structural reforms, but also the efforts in bringing U.S. investors to Serbia. He concluded his speech with the following statement: “I am committed to doing my utmost to promote our shared goal – a democratic Serbia providing growth and security for its citizens, at peace with all of its neighbors, and firmly set on a path of European integration“.

From the discussions I used to have with him as a colleague for more than a year, being unaware until recently that his next post will be Belgrade (I found out about that only when he was officially appointed in September), I noticed how he thoroughly prepared himself, by reading history of the whole region, literature, policy papers. He always posed questions with the aim to understand our region, as well as to understand Serbia in all its complexity, remaining open and without prejudice or already made conclusions. Kyle Scott is a very good listener. How thoroughly he prepared for this post is also evident from the following fact: when I traveled to Belgrade back in October, he asked me to buy him the history textbooks that are used in the final two years of high school, as he wanted to see how our students learn national and world history.

Ivan Vejvoda is senior vice president for programs at The German Marshall Fund of the United States