Ambassador Norkus is a career diplomat. Currently based in Vilnius, Norkus served as Lithuanian Ambassador to the United Kingdom until 2022. Formerly, as Director of the Transatlantic Cooperation & Security Policy Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania.
His professional diplomatic assignments, among others, include Ambassador to the Russian Federation (17 January 2012 – 22 December 2014), Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN, OSCE and other International Organisations in Vienna (2008-2012), also as the Chairperson of the OSCE Permanent Council during Lithuania’s Chairmanship in the OSCE (2011). He has been twice seconded to the Ministry of National Defence of Lithuania: as Director of Defence Policy and Programmes Department (1994-1998), and as Undersecretary for Policy (2004-2008). He joined the Lithuanian Diplomatic Service as Third Secretary of Central and Eastern Europe Division in 1991, and has held a number of positions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vilnius as well as in Lithuania’s diplomatic missions overseas, such as DCM of the Embassy to the United States and DCM of Lithuanian Mission to NATO and WEU.
In between his assignments as public servant of Lithuania, Mr. Norkus had executive training at the International Training Course on International Security policy, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland (1993-1994); he has been involved with academic research as Scholar-in-residence at the Institute of International Affairs, Rome as participant in the research project “Preventing Violent Conflicts in Europe” (1996).
