Office of the High Representative Press Releases


OHR Press Release

New Head of OHR Banja Luka

Sarajevo, 30 November 1999

The High Representative, Wolfgang Petritsch, is pleased to announce that Ambassador Peter Hancock will be joining OHR as Head of Office in Banja Luka.

Ambassador Hancock has had a distinguished career in the Canadian Foreign Office and has extensive professional knowledge of the region. In recent years Ambassador Hancock has held a number of high level positions, serving as Canadian Ambassador to Poland, the German Democratic Republic, Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan. A full Curriculum Vitae is attached below.

Ambassador Hancock will take up his duties before the end of the year, replacing Ambassador Miguel Arias, who left Banja Luka on October the 29th, 1999. Pasi Poysari, a Finnish Diplomat, is acting Head of Office in Banja Luka.

The High Representative takes this opportunity to welcome Ambassador Peter Hancock and express his best wishes and gratitude for the hard work Ambassador Arias undertook in the name of the Office of the High Representative in promoting the goals of the Dayton Peace Agreement.

Curriculum Vitae
Name:Peter Hancock
Date of Birth:1938
Citizenship:Canadian
Education: BA Honours in Political Science in History Queen's University, Ontario. Canada.
Graduate Study in History of Philosophy Brandis University, Mass. USA
Senior Fellow at Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Toronto, Canada
Visiting Scholar University of Toronto.
Languages: English (mother tongue), good French and Russian, knowledge of German and languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Work History: 1965 - 1968 Third Secretary, Canadian Embassy, Belgrade.
1968 - 1970 First Secretary, Canadian Embassy, Moscow.
1973 - 1976 First Secretary, Canadian Embassy, Barbados.
1979 - 1981 Minister-Counselor, Canadian Embassy, Moscow.
1985 - 1991 Minister, Canadian Embassy. Bonn.
1989 - 1993 Ambassador to Poland and the German Republic until 1991.
1993 - 1996 Ambassador to Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan.

OHR Press Release, Sarajevo, 30 November 1999