Agreement on Foreign Affairs Counsellor to Mayor of Riga signed

On 29 September Foreign Ministry State Secretary Andris Teikmanis and Chairman of Riga City Council Nils Usakovs signed Co-operation agreement on Foreign Affairs Counsellor to Mayor of Riga.

To this position the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has appointed Jurijs Pogrebņaks, former Counsellor of the Russia Division of the Foreign Ministry Bilateral Relations Department.

On 20 July at a meeting with Mayor Nils Usakovs, Foreign Minister Maris Riekstins reached an agreement on finding a possibility to depute a foreign policy counsellor from the Foreign Ministry to Riga City Council. "The sphere where the capital of Latvia acts is vast, therefore we agreed to appoint a foreign affairs counsellor to Riga City Council, just as foreign affairs counsellors have been deputed to the President, Speaker of the Saeima and Prime Minister," noted Minister Riekstins.

Jurijs Pogrebnaks serves the Foreign Service since 1995, has worked in the divisions of the CIS and Central Europe and has held the post of 1^st Secretary in the Latvian Embassy in the Czech Republic. After his return from Prague, in 2003 Jurijs Pogrebņaks was the Head of the NATO Integration Division until leaving to take up office as the Counsellor of the Latvian Embassy in Turkey. In 2009 Jurijs Pogrebnaks returned to Riga and continued his work in the Foreign Service as the Counsellor of the Russia Division.

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