The Balkan nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina has sent a new ambassador to the U.S. Jadranka Negodić succeeds Mitar Kujundžić, who served as Bosnia’s man in Washington starting in February 2009.
Born circa 1956, Negodić earned a law degree at the University of Sarajevo in 1979. During the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Bosnian War, she fled Sarajevo to the relative safety of Dubrovnik, Croatia. After the war, she took a job at the new Bosnian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which made sense to her because she “had always enjoyed travel and contact with other people.” Few of Bosnia’s diplomats had served under the Yugoslavian regime, and with no formal diplomatic academy Negodić got on-the-job training, including opportunities when she visited the foreign affairs ministries in Japan, Turkey, the US, Italy and Greece. Early on she headed the Department for Neighboring Countries, which required her legal expertise in dealing with post-conflict issues such as border delimitation, restitution of property and refugees, with the former Yugoslav republics of Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Kosovo.
Negodić served as minister-counsellor at the Bosnian embassy in London, UK, from 2003 to 2006. After that posting, she returned home to serve as assistant minister of foreign affairs from 2007 to 2008. In January 2008, Negodić was appointed head of Bosnia’s mission to the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium. During her tenure, Bosnia signed the Stabilization and Association Agreement with the EU on June 16, 2008, which set Bosnia on the road toward EU membership. She returned to London in December 2008 to serve as ambassador to the UK until 2012.
-Matt Bewig
