Zalmai Rassoul

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Zalmai Rassoul
Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office
10 January 2010 – 5 October 2013
President Hamid Karzai
Preceded by Rangin Dadfar Spanta
Personal details
Born 1943 (age 70–71)
Kabul, Afghanistan
Religion Islam

Zalmai Rassoul (born 1943[1]) is a politician in Afghanistan, who served as the Foreign Minister since January 2010 after receiving the confidence vote of the Afghan National Assembly. He previously served as National Security Advisor of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, which he held since June 2002. He has accompanied Afghan President Hamid Karzai on all official visits since the establishment of the Interim Administration in 2001. He resigned on 5 October 2013 to stand candidate in the 2014 Presidential elections

Early life

Rassoul was born in or about 1942 in Kabul, Afghanistan. He attended Lycée Esteqlal where he graduated as the valedictorian. Subsequently, he traveled to France to study on a scholarship at the Paris Medical School and received his M.D. in 1973. An ethnic Pashtun,[2] belonging to Mohammadzai tribe (of the Zirak branch of the Durrani Confederacy), he is fluent in Dari, Pashto, French, English, and Italian and has a working knowledge of Arabic.

He has over 30 publications in European and American medical journals [3] and is a member of the American Society of Nephrology.

Since 1998, Rassoul devoted his full attention to the convening of the Emergency Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly) as the director of the Secretariat of Mohammad Zaher Shah, the former King of Afghanistan. Under Rassoul's leadership, the Secretariat in Rome played a key role in the future political transition of Afghanistan. Prior to the Bonn Conference, Zahir Shah dispatched numerous delegations to world capitals, Afghanistan's neighbors, and Afghanistan itself to build support for the convening of the Emergency Loya Jirga.

Rassoul accompanied President Hamid Karzai, at that time a leading member of the Executive Committee of the Loya Jirga, on these missions. Rassoul was suited for this work because of his long term, close contact with Afghan resistance and his 1980 founding and publishing of the monthly publication Afghan Reality created to increase awareness and be a voice of information from inside Afghanistan to the international community regarding the plight of the Afghan people. Rassoul has been politically active for several decades in the struggle for the freedom of Afghanistan and the right of the Afghan people to decide their future in accordance with their free will.

Dr. Rassoul was nominated by President Hamid Karzai as the Minister of Civil Aviation, and unanimously approved by the Cabinet in March 2002. Under his able leadership, Afghanistan's aviation sector was revived after many years of United Nations sanctions against the Taliban and Afghanistan. Rassoul played an important role in Afghanistan's readmission to the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Prior to his service in the current Afghan government, Rassoul served as a delegate to the historic November 2001 Bonn Conference. Following the Bonn Conference, he accompanied President Karzai to Kabul for the inauguration of the Afghan Interim Administration.

2014 Presidential election

On 5 October 2013 Rassoul resigned from his position as Foreign Minister and on 6 October he officially filed nomination as candidate in the Afghanistan Presidential elections of 2014.[4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Ministers of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
  2. ↑ "Northern alliance rejects outside security force for Afghanistan". November 29, 2001. Retrieved 2012-12-07. 
  3. ↑ Rassoul, Dr. Zalmai. "Google Scholar". List of publications. Google. 
  4. ↑ "Dr. Zalmai Rasoul nominated for 2014 presidential elections". 6 October 2013. Retrieved 14 October 2013. 

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Political offices
Preceded by
Rangin Dadfar Spanta		 Minister of Foreign Affairs
2010–present 		Incumbent
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