Afif Safieh is a Palestinian diplomat born in East Jerusalem in 1950. He studied political science at the Catholic University of Louvain and the Institute of Political Studies in Paris. In 1976, he joined the PLO Observer Mission to the UN in Geneva and later worked alongside Yasser Arafat in Beirut. In 1987, he was appointed PLO representative to the Netherlands and, in 1990, Palestinian Delegate-General to the United Kingdom. In 1995, he assumed representation to the Holy See and in 2005 was appointed head of the Palestinian mission in Washington. 

Since 2009, he has been ambassador-at-large for special missions based in London.