Proposed last May by President Joe Biden, the United States Senate confirmed, after a vote on December 21, the appointment of Joey Hood as the new U.S. ambassador to Tunisia
Joey Hood replaces Donald Blome whose mission in Tunisia has come to an end. Hood was until 15 April this year Antony Blinken’s Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs.
He has spent most of his career in the Middle East where he was Chief of Mission in Iraq and Kuwait, Consul General in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, after having been Director of the Iranian Affairs Bureau in the State Department. He knows Tunisia as he visited it in May 2021.
During this visit, he met Mohamed Ali Nafti, Secretary of State to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Elyes Ghariani, diplomatic adviser to the head of government Hichem Mechichi.
In August 2021, accompanied by Jonathan Finer, Deputy National Security Advisor at the White House and Josh Harris, Director of the North Africa Office at the National Security Council at the White House, he led a high-level US delegation to Tunisia and met with the President of the Republic Kais Saied.
TunisianMonitorOnline
