British Ambassador to the Czech Republic Jan Thompson visited RFE/RL’s Prague headquarters July 8 for a foreign policy roundtable discussion with RFE/RL journalists, editors and service directors.
In the course of the informal, off-the-record talk, Thompson fielded questions about the UK’s views on a broad range of issues from across RFE/RL’s broadcast regions.
Ambassador Thompson was appointed British Ambassador to the Czech Republic effective July, 2013. Before joining the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1990, Thompson spent two years working for the BBC.
In the course of her diplomatic career, Thompson has focused on international negotiation, crisis management, and conflict, security and defense policy. She was stationed in Germany (1992-1994) and with the UN Security Council in New York (1997-2000). She led work on the Balkan wars (1994-1997) and headed the UK department on Afghanistan (2002-2005). After the Asian tsunami she flew to Thailand to establish a temporary British office to help the victims. Before her current appointment she was the UK’s lead Climate Change Negotiator, with a short break in 2011 when she headed the UK department in the Libya conflict.