Embassy of the United States Asmara, Eritrea

SUE BREMNER
Foreign Service Officer, U.S. Department of State

Sue Bremner has been a career United States Foreign Service Officer since 1986. In July 2012, she assumed duties as Chargé d’affaires in Asmara, Eritrea. Previously, she was Political Adviser to the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, in Djibouti, where she served as the ranking civilian offering counsel to a 3800-strong United States Military deployment. Until July 2011, she was DCM in Ndjamena, Chad, having served as Chargé d'affaires for much of her tour. From 2006 to 2008, Ms. Bremner was Deputy and Director of the Office of Taiwan Coordination, responsible for encouraging Cross-Strait Rapprochement. From 2004-2006, Ms. Bremner headed the Political Unit of the State Department's Office of Korean Affairs. She managed U.S. relations with and policy toward the DPRK, including the DPRK’s nuclear programs, and she participated in the 2005 and 2006 Six-Party Talks in Beijing. 

Ms. Bremner served for four years as a political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, overseeing Franco-U.S. cooperation on European security and defense policy, as well as European approaches toward Asian and African affairs, including European participation in peacekeeping. She was previously posted to the U.S. Mission to NATO in Brussels (1996-2000), where she helped to establish and integrate USG policies toward the Balkans, including NATO, EU and UN peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance, and NATO/EU enlargement. 

In 1995, following the Dayton Accords, Ms. Bremner was seconded to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), where she served as chief of a political section in the Mission to Sarajevo, whose overall responsibilities included inter-ethnic reconciliation, refugee and IDP matters and improvements in rule of law and media freedom. During the Balkans conflicts, Ms. Bremner was special adviser to the Under Secretary for Political Affairs, and worked for two periods on the National Security Council. She was Bosnia Desk Officer from 1992 to 1994. From 1990 to 1992, Ms. Bremner was EU (then EC) Desk Officer, responsible for tracking European assistance to the former Soviet Union.

Ms. Bremner’s first assignment with the foreign service was in China; during that tour, she wrote analyses of China's one-child policy, rural to urban migration, and poverty in the Chinese countryside.  A native of Columbus, Ohio, Ms. Bremner has advanced degrees in English and formal linguistics from the University of California at Berkeley and the Ohio State University. Her languages are Mandarin Chinese and French.  Prior to entering the Foreign Service, Ms. Bremner taught undergraduate English composition at Berkeley and at Peking University in China.