The european nation of Slovakia—which this year celebrates the twentieth anniversary of its independence from the former Czechoslovakia—sent a new ambassador to the U.S. in September 2012, an experienced diplomat who had served in the U.S. before. Peter Kmec presented his credentials to President Barack Obama on September 19, succeeding Peter Burian, who had been Bratislava's man in Washington since 2008.
Born circa 1964, Peter Kmec earned a graduate degree in International Relations and Affairs at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 1990, and a degree in International Law and Legal Studies at Comenius University in Bratislava the same year.
Immediately joining the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia, Kmec served from 1990 to 1991 in its Department of International Economic Relations in Prague (now part of the Czech Republic), and in 1992 served as an advisor to the chairman of the Chamber of Nations of the Czechoslovak Federal Assembly.
After Slovakia became independent on January 1, 1993, Kmec joined the newly formed Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovakia, serving as Second Secretary with the Slovak Permanent Mission to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna, Austria, from 1993 to 1997.
After serving as deputy director in the Department of Security Policy at the Slovakian Foreign Ministry in Bratislava from 1997 to 1998, Kmec served as political counselor on another OSCE mission, this one to Georgia, from 1998 to 1999. Returning to Bratislava, he served as deputy chief of the Foreign Minister’s cabinet from 1999 to 2000.
Kmec spent the first half of the new century's first decade as the number two man at two key embassies, serving as deputy chief of mission at Slovakia's embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, from 2000 to 2002, and holding the same title at Slovakia's embassy in Washington, DC, from 2003 to 2005. Although this was Kmec's first official posting to the U.S., in 1992 he attended a study program at the Library of Congress as part of the Frost Task Force on Parliamentary Development.
Back in Bratislava, Kmec served as chief of the Foreign Minister’s cabinet from 2005 to 2007.
Kmec was appointed to his first ambassadorship in 2007, serving as Slovakia's ambassador to Sweden from August 2007 to July 2012.
Peter Kmec speaks English and Russian. He is married to Monika Kmecová and has two children, Lucia and Adam.
-Matt Bewig
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