Arturo Sarukhán
| Arturo Sarukhan | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Ambassador of Mexico to the United States | |
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In office 27 February 2007 – 10 January 2013 |
|
| President | Felipe Calderón |
| Preceded by | Carlos de Icaza |
| Succeeded by | Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
14 September 1963 Mexico City, Mexico |
| Spouse(s) | Verónica Valencia |
| Relations | José Sarukhán (father) |
| Residence | Washington, D.C. |
| Alma mater | El Colegio de México, Johns Hopkins University |
Arturo Sarukhan Casamitjana (Armenian: Արթուրո Սարուխան, born 14 September 1963) is a Mexican diplomat. He is an international strategic consultant based in Washington, DC and currently a Distinguished Diplomat in Residence at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. He is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Annenberg Center for Public Diplomacy at USC. He served as Mexican ambassador to the United States from January 27, 2007 to January 10, 2013; as former Consul General at New York City; as foreign policy coordinator in Felipe Calderón's presidential campaign and transition team (February – November 2006); as Chief of Staff for Policy Planning and Deputy Assistant Secretary for InterAmerican Affairs in Mexico's Foreign Ministry (SRE).
His grandfather, Artur Sarukhanian, was a Russian Armenian aide to the 2nd Minister-Chairman of the Russian Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky. After Kerensky was overthrown by the Bolsheviks, Sarukhanian moved to Venice, Italy where he trained at the Mechitarist seminary. Sarukhán's grandmother fled to Thessaloniki, Greece during the Armenian Genocide, then moved to Venice, where she met and later married Sarukhanian. Shortly after Benito Mussolini came to power, they left Italy for Mexico.
On his mother’s side, Sarukhán is a descendant of Spanish Republican refugees. The Casamitjanas, a Catalan family, crossed the Pyrenees into France at the end of the Civil War and after the fall of Barcelona, and were held in a French concentration camp. They sought asylum in Mexico, when then President Lázaro Cárdenas welcomed thousands of Spanish Republicans who fled after the victory of Francisco Franco's fascist forces.
Sarukhán graduated from El Colegio de México with a bachelor's degree in International Relations and received a master's degree in U.S. Foreign Policy at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C., where he studied as a Fulbright scholar and Ford Foundation Fellow. In 1988–1989, before joining Mexico’s Foreign Service, Sarukhán served as the Executive Secretary of the Commission for the Future of Mexico-US relations, a non-governmental initiative funded by the Ford Foundation to recast the Mexico-US relationship.
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