Nikola Dimitrov


Nikola Dimitrov is a Macedonian politician and diplomat, who has been serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs for North Macedonia since 31 May 2017. Formerly Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Macedonian Ambassador to the United States and then the Netherlands, in 2014 he turned down an appointment as Macedonia's new ambassador to Russia.

Career

Dimitrov started his government career in 1996 at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1996 as an international human rights lawyer, and was promoted to Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2000. In 2002 he was named the second Macedonian Ambassador to the United States in 2002, succeeding Ljubica Acevska. This made him the youngest diplomat in Washington, D.C. at the time; this was part of a trend of generational transitions in Eastern European governments "replac the old guard with young, Western-educated technocrats".
In October 2009 he took up a new post as Macedonia's ambassador to the Netherlands. After the end of his term there in March 2013, it had originally been planned that he would take up the ambassadorship to Germany, but instead that post went to Nikola Kolev. In February 2014, it was announced that Dimitrov had turned down an appointment as Macedonia's ambassador to Moscow.
He is former member of The Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group.

Personal life

Dimitrov's father Dimitar was a refugee of the Greek Civil War. Dimitrov did his LL.B. at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje, and his LL.M at King's College, Cambridge in the United Kingdom, where he specialised in international law. He is married and has a daughter.