Public Service
Siddique served on several Presidential delegations including the White House Conference on Travel and Tourism and the First Hemispheric Trade and Commerce Forum. He also served on the National Democratic Institute's International Observer Delegation to the Bangladesh Parliamentary Elections in 1996. He was nominated for an ambassadorship by President Clinton on May 27, 1999. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on August 5, 1999 where he had been introduced by Senator John Warner. On August 17, 1999 he was sworn in as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Fiji and to the Republic of Nauru, to the Kingdom of Tonga and to Tuvalu. He took the oath on the Bible and the Quran, with the Quran on top”. Siddique was "the first Muslim to be appointed to represent the United States abroad as an Ambassador. Following his swearing-in ceremony, Siddique said he believed he was the first American ambassador of the Islamic faith to take the oath of office with his hand on the Holy Qur’an. The Christian Bible is traditionally used to swear in US officials and Siddique said his wife, Catherine Mary Siddique, provided one for the ceremony."
In 2000 Siddique accompanied President Bill Clinton as the Chief of Protocol for his delegation on his trips to Bangladesh and India.
After his departure from the office in 2001 (at the end of Clinton's second term), his duties were temporarily filled by the embassy’s Chargé d'Affaires Hugh Neighbour until 2003 when David L. Lyon was appointed ambassador by President George W. Bush.
Siddique is currently a member of the Council of American Ambassadors where "He is in the forefront of discussions and policy debates towards greater understanding between US foreign policy and the Islamic world."
Read more about this topic: M. Osman Siddique
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