Alberto Fernandez on US public diplomacy to Sudan.

Interview with Alberto Fernandez, the American charge de’affaires in Sudan, "one of the few who speak fluent Arabic at the State Department": "IOL: What role has public diplomacy played in attempts to normalize relations between the US and Sudan? Fernandez: That is a better question I think for the Sudanese rather than for me. I think we are very active in public diplomacy in Sudan. We are being very aggressive about speaking with the press in Arabic and we make ourselves available. I certainly make myself available, sometimes I think more than I would like to the Sudanese press so they certainly have opportunities to ask me all kind of questions, negative questions and hostile questions, whatever they want, and we try to answer them as seriously and respectfully as possible. We also try to do as much outreach as we can in the public diplomacy field with the Sudanese people, for example, we are renovating the Ali Dinar museum in El-Fisher in Darfur which was the palace of the last sultan of Darfur and is a very lovely little museum there. We are doing other things as well. I am still frustrated that we haven’t re-established education exchange programs with Sudan." IslamOnline.net, 29 October 2008. Posted: 29 Oct 2008 Permalink Print