On the whole, he'd probably rather be in Montenegro

When Ivor Roberts takes over in Britain's Dublin embassy early next year, he should have no problem settling into his new surroundings (although, on the whole, he'd probably rather be in Montenegro).

Born of an Italian mother and a Welsh father, he has been known to stress his un-Englishness when pressed abroad about London's attitude to its own Celtic fringe. And while an old college friend describes him as "on the surface, very British," he adds:

"Underneath that, he's not typical at all. He has a very attractive, warm, heavy personality - instinctively warm and sympathetic - but he's also very tough physically. I think that mixture was the reason he got on so well in Belgrade, though he also has a great liking for Serbian life and culture. He knows Serb songs and so on".

His posting in Belgrade from 1994 to last year seems to have been the defining part of his career to date, but it was not without controversy. He was instrumental in getting British hostages released in 1995, negotiating behind the scenes with the head of the Serbian secret police; and he became, according to a former colleague from that time, "probably the most influential ambassador in Belgrade, which was a reflection as much of his personality as of Britain's engagement".

The same colleague says it was Roberts who established the principle that the Serbs had to be part of any Balkan solution and, specifically, "that you had to engage with [Slobodan] Milosevic. Ivor started that process and [US envoy Richard] Holbrooke finished it".

A less sanguine view is that Roberts became too close to Milosevic while in Belgrade. And when his role as a conduit between the Serb leader and the opposition parties after the rigged elections of 1996 became public, he had to pull back from the process.

"No one doubted his good faith. He was acting perfectly honourably," a journalist who worked in Belgrade says. "But he had become a player in the game and when it was made public he found himself embarrassed."

Holbrooke was also among those who thought Roberts was too engaged. In his book, To End A War, he described his first meeting with Britain's man in Belgrade:

" was erudite and charming, and I respected him for his intellect and his knowledge, although he seemed excessively pro-Serb. He [later] cautioned me in an eloquent letter never to forget that the Serbs felt that history had victimised them. Don't put them in a corner, he urged, or they will lash back. The clear subtext was that bombing was a mistake.

"I thanked Roberts for his views . . . The Serb view of history was their problem, I told Roberts later; ours was to end the war."

The old college friend is more supportive of Roberts's role: "He did a very good job in Belgrade in very difficult circumstances. But there's a strong Roman Catholic lobby in the Foreign Office, who were very pro-Croat, and he took a lot of flak from them."

His colleague from Belgrade admits Roberts had to disengage in the wake of the stolen 1996 elections. "He certainly hadn't been fooled by Milosevic. After Dayton, he did think Milosevic might engage with democratisation, but he always realised he was slippery as a bag of eels. He could deal with him and he held him to certain things, but after the elections his opinion of him did change a bit."

Since ending his stint in Belgrade, Roberts has been on secondment to St Andrew's College in Oxford, an institution specialising in foreign policy. "He's bored stiff," the colleague says. "He was parked there like a car by the Foreign Office and he's surrounded by old farts rubber-stamping existing FO policy. He's a man who likes to be where the action is, and it's not his scene at all."

But the hiatus in foreign postings has at least given an opportunity to write a book on his time in the Balkans. His Australian wife - Elizabeth Smith, a former diplomat herself with whom he has three children - is also a Balkanologist, speaking fluent Serbo-Croat and also currently writing a book on Montenegro.

Their passion for the subject suggests another posting in the region might have been preferable, and the friend agrees: "Probably. But there wasn't any available job in the Balkans at the level suitable. And Ivor has worked on Irish things during his time in the Home Office, so I think he's enthusiastic about it. And he is Welsh, after all."

Who's Who lists his recreations as opera, skiing, and golf. He is also a dog-lover, who keeps in close touch with the fate of a pooch left behind in Belgrade due to ill-health.

A good actor during his days at Oxford, he enjoys the theatre, too, but didn't see much of it in what a friend calls "the cultural desert of Belgrade". His former colleague agrees that the posting "didn't offer much opportunity to indulge culturally". In that respect, at least, Dublin should be an improvement.