Kevin M. O’Reilly, a career diplomat with more than 35 years of experience in his country’s diplomacy, assumed this Wednesday, June 28, his position as “long-term” Chargé d’Affaires, which seals the decline in diplomatic relations between the United States and the Daniel Ortega regime.
“Hello Nicaragua! Glad to be in the country, ready to assume my duties as Chargé d’Affaires of the (US) Embassy and looking forward to learning more about Nicaragua. It is an honor to represent my country before you,” was the first message from the new highest representative of the US government in the country, through his official Twitter account.
The Embassy of the United States (Embusa) in Managua, through a press release, reported that it “welcomes” the new charge d’affaires, whom they describe as a “high-ranking US diplomat.”
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O’Reilly, is a career Foreign Service official “High Ranking of the United States, assumed the role of Chargé d’Affaires, ad interim, replacing Ambassador Kevin K. Sullivan, who departed on May 20, 2023” , says the press release of the Embusa.
The United States decided to lower its diplomatic relations with the Government of Daniel Ortega to the level of business manager after, on July 27 of last year, the dictatorship denied it, without even presenting its credentials, the “consent” to Ambassador Hugo Rodríguez , who would replace the then ambassador Kevin Sullivan, who had already completed his mission in the country.
“The Government of Nicaragua, in use of its faculties and in exercise of its national sovereignty, immediately withdraws the approval granted to the candidate Hugo Rodríguez,” the foreign minister of the dictatorship, Denis Moncada, announced at that time.
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The Ortega regime accused the diplomat Rodríguez of “interference and not at all diplomatic”, after the appointed ambassador said that there is a dictatorship in Nicaragua.
That forced Washington to keep Sullivan in office indefinitely until he finally left the country on May 20.
Long diplomatic career
According to the press release released by Embusa, O’Reilly served as National Coordinator for the Summit of the Americas between March 2022 and June 2023. Before that, he served, for three years, as Assistant Secretary of State in the Office of Western Hemisphere.
He was also deputy head of mission and business manager at the United States Embassy in Panama, between 2014-2017. He served as director of the National Security Council for North American Affairs at the White House. Director of the Office of Mexican Affairs; and Senior Director for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs at the US Embassy in Iraq.
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“Furthermore, throughout his 35-year career working as an officer in the Foreign Service of the US Department of State, Mr. O’Reilly worked at embassies in Mexico City, Mexico; Santo Domingo Dominican Republic; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Jakarta, Indonesia,” says the official statement.
Despite the constant clashes between the dictator Daniel Ortega and the United States Government and his hateful speech towards those he calls “imperialists”, that country is Nicaragua’s main trading partner.
