The Indian Ocean island nation of Maldives—at 4 feet 11 inches (1.50 meters) above sea level the lowest-lying nation on earth—sent a new ambassador to the U.S. at the end of 2012. Ahmed Sareer succeeded Abdul Gafoor Mohamed, who resigned over the February 2012 transfer of power from former President Mohamed Nasheed to current leader Mohamed Waheed Hassan, explaining on Al Jazeera’s ‘The Stream’ program that he believed “the new president should have the opportunity to have his views and policies presented to the world community through representatives who serve him without equivocation or reservation.”
Sareer, who presented his credentials to President Obama on January 14, 2013, is concurrently accredited as Maldives’ permanent representative to the United Nations in New York.
Born in Malé, Maldives, on August 28, 1965, Sareer attended the all-male Majeedhiyya school in Malé before earning a bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences from the University of Canberra and a master’s degree in Foreign Affairs and Trade from Monash University in Melbourne.
A career foreign service officer, Saheer joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in February1986 and served as a desk officer until February 1988. He seved as third secretary in Colombo, Sri Lanka, from April 1988 to February 1989, assistant under-secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from February to September 1992, and during his first posting to the U.S., as second secretary/chargé d’affaires ad interim at the Maldives Permanent Mission to the U.N. from September 1992 to December 1993.
Between January 1994 and May 2000, Sareer was assistant director, and later deputy director for Foreign Relations, in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
He then served as director of the Secretariat of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in Kathmandu, Nepal, from June 2000 to May 2003. After a stint as assistant director-general in the Foreign Ministry,he served as counselor and later deputy high commissioner at the Maldives embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka, from July 2006 to March 2008.
Sareer served two consecutive postings in Europe, first as chargé d’affaires at the Maldives Mission to the European Union in Brussels, Belgium, from March to June 2008, and then as deputy high commissioner at the Maldives embassy in London, U.K., from June 2008 to May 2009.
From December 2009 until his recent appointment, Sareer served as the high commissioner of Maldives to Bangladesh.
He and his wife, Fathimath Athifa, have four children.
