New Portuguese ambassador in Dili presents credentials
“I had the opportunity to tell the President that it is with great personal and professional honor that I take up my duties in Timor-Leste, a brother country and brother people of the Portuguese people and of Portugal.“, he told Lusa.
“We have a very special relationship and I have been to Timor-Leste before, within the framework of the fraternity of Portuguese-speaking countries“, he underlined.
Bairos, who comes to Dili after carrying out his duties in Cyprus, said that the power to return to Timor-Leste, now as a return to Timor-Leste, has “special significance” and that he hopes to “strengthen cooperation” between the two countries. .
“I was grateful for the fact that they had such credentials in a short time, which reveals the attention, care and affection they have for Portugal. Now let’s work together to reinforce the bilaterals that are good“, he stressed.
The Timorese Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Adaljiza Magno, also highlighted Bairos’s connections with Timor-Leste, including having participated in the training of the first 50 Timorese diplomats, even before the restoration of independence.
The diplomat’s previous connection to Timor-Leste “represents many advantages”, he said, highlighting the personal friendship with Manuela Bairos, which will facilitate joint work.
Portugal and Timor-Leste have a “strong bond of friendship, a strong historical bond“, recalled Magno, who underlined the importance of cooperation in areas such as education, defense of justice, among others.
Long connection to Timor-Leste
Bairos, 60 years old and born in Vila do Porto, Azores, has a degree in Law from the Classic University of Lisbon, a postgraduate degree in European Studies from the Portuguese Catholic University and a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University.
Among other posts, commissioned in 1999 in service with the Portuguese Interests Section in Jakarta, later seconded to the Portuguese Mission in Timor-Leste, in Darwin in support of human assistance operations for refugees and Timorese.
He returned to service at the Portuguese Embassy in Jakarta, until June 2000, before taking on the role of head of division at the Portuguese Cooperation Institute.
He was on duty in February at the Consulate in Hamilton, Bermuda, from December 2001 to 2002, he was head of division in the Directorate of European Services of the General Directorate for Bilateral Relations and, later, consul general in Boston.
She was counselor at the embassy in, head of the Cabinet of State of the Secretaries of the Portuguese Community, and was again on a mission to Timor-Leste in the Monitoring Commission of the Head of the Office of the Secretary of the Portuguese Community of Paris, in 2014.
The diplomat was also consul general in New York, 1st class plenipotentiary minister, at the Embassy in Nicosia, with credential credentials, simultaneously accredited as a non-resident ambassador to the Republic of Lebanon.