Tanaskovic, Rodic take up offices as ambassadors

BELGRADE - Darko Tanaskovic has been appointed new permanent delegate of the Republic of Serbia to UNESCO in Paris by a decree of Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic.

President Nikolic signed the decrees on the appointment of ambassadors on September 11, and they entered into force on Friday.

Tanaskovic (66) is a Serbian oriental philologist and a former Yugoslavia diplomat. He graduated from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philology in 1970, where he also received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in 1972 and 1979, respectively. Since 1989, he has been a full-time professor at the Department of Oriental Studies, where he teaches several subjects.

He has published over 600 scientific works in the field of Oriental Studies. He has been visiting scholar at several universities at home and abroad, and in 1995, he was elected as member of Academia Scientiarum et Artium Europaea in Sazlburg.

He is a member of the Association of Writers of Serbia, the Association of Literary Translators of Serbia and the Serbian PEN Centre.

Tanaskovic served as ambassador of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to the Republic of Turkey from 1995 to 1999, to Azerbaijan from 1998 to 1999 and to the Vatican and to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta from 2002 to 2008.

He fluently speaks French, English, Arabic, Turkish, Italian and Russian and was also educated in classical languages such as Latin and Greek.

He is married and has three children.

By another presidential decree, Nebojsa Rodic (61) was appointed as ambassador of the Republic of Serbia to Azerbaijan.

Rodic graduated from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law in 1977 and passed the bar exam in 1979. He also graduated from the...