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Philip Thomas Reeker is an American diplomat and career foreign service officer with the Department of State. He served as the ambassador to Macedonia 2008–2011.
From June 2007 until June 2008, he served at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq as the Counselor to the Ambassador for Public Affairs. He was the Deputy Chief of Mission in Budapest, Hungary from 2004 to 2007. Reeker was Deputy Spokesman and Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Public Affairs from 2000-2003. He was recipient of the Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Public Diplomacy in 2003, and traveled domestically and internationally as the Spokesman at Large for the State Department, giving talks and interviews on U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy from 2003 to 2004.
A career foreign service officer, Reeker previously served as Director of Press Relations at the State Department from 1999 to 2000; Assistant Information Officer in Budapest, Hungary from 1993 to 1996; and as the Public Affairs Officer in Skopje, Macedonia from 1997 to 1999. He was spokesman for Ambassador Christopher R. Hill and for the Rambouillet Agreement (Kosovo peace talks).
Born in Pennsylvania, Mr. Reeker grew up in multiple parts of the United States as well as in Australia. He received a BA from Yale University in 1986, and an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in 1991. He is married to Solveig Johnson Reeker, who also is a member of the Foreign Service.
On January 19, 2012, during a handball match between the Republic of Macedonia and the Czech Republic for the European Handball Championship in Serbia, Reeker, together with fans of Republic of Macedonia's team, sang a nationalistic song called "Izlezi Momče" (Macedonian Slavic: Излези момче, "Get out boy"), which promotes the irredentist concept of a United Macedonia with the Greek city of Thessaloniki (Solun in the Slavic languages) as its capital. The incident caused the Pan-Macedonian Association USA (one of the largest Greek organizations in the USA) to send a complaint letter to Barack Obama, concluding that it’s inappropriate for a high ranking US official to be associated with Macedonian nationalism.
See also
References
- Reeker: Of Course I'll Cheer for Macedonia, Macedonian International News Agency, Friday, 20 January 2012
- A large assembly of people during the inauguration of the Statue of Alexander the Great in Skopje, the players of the national basketball team of the Republic of Macedonia during the European Basketball Championship in Lithuania, and a little girl, singing a nationalistic tune called Izlezi Momče (Излези момче, "Get out boy"). Translation from Macedonian:
"Get out, boy, straight on the terrace
And salute Goce's race
Raise your hands up high
Ours will be Thessaloniki's area."
- Letter to President Barack Obama regarding Philip T. Reeker (in Greek), Pan Macedonian Association
- Letter to President Barack Obama regarding Philip T. Reeker (in English), Pan Macedonian Association