State
Department spokesman Ian Kelly has
been nominated by President Obama to be the U.S. representative to the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the White House
announced Monday.
Kelly is
well known as the daily briefer at the State Department, placed in the
difficult position of often having very little new information to offer in the
face of barrages of questions from frustrated members of the State Department
press corps. As OSCE representative, he would be based in Vienna.
For the
first five months of the Obama administration, he was deputy assistant secretary
in the bureau for European and Eurasian Affairs. He served as director of the
Office of Russian Affairs from 2007-2009 and was counselor for public affairs
at the U.S. Mission to NATO before that. He has also been posted overseas in Rome,
Ankara, Vienna, Belgrade, Moscow, Leningrad, and Milan, according to the White
House announcement.
Other
diplomatic nominations announced today include Allan J. Katz for Ambassador to Portugual, Bisa
Williams to be Ambassador to the Republic of Niger, and Raul H.
Yzaguirre to be Ambassador to the Dominican Republic.
Williams is currently the lead State Department
official dealing with Cuba policy. No word yet on her potential replacement or
what her move will mean for the Obama administration's ongoing dialogue with
the Cuban government.
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