Haron Amin

Haron Amin
Haron Amin (Jim Wallace, 2001)
Afghan Ambassador to Japan
In office
April 30, 2004 – April 30, 2009
President Hamid Karzai
Succeeded by Eklil Ahmad Hakimi
Personal details
Born July 19, 1969 (disputed)
Kabul, Kingdom of Afghanistan
Died February 15, 2015
United States

Haron Amin (Dari: هارون امین‎; July 19, 1969[1] – February 15, 2015) was the Afghan ambassador to Japan and non-resident ambassador to Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore from 2004 to 2009. He is chiefly known, however, for his role as spokesman for the Northern Alliance during the U.S.-led invasion of his country after the events of September 11, 2001.

A consistent presence in American media prior to the Taliban's collapse,[2][3] Amin was appointed chargé d'affaires to the United States by the interim Afghan government on January 14, 2002. He was the highest-ranking Afghan diplomat in Washington for a year-long period in 2002-03, before being appointed to the Tokyo embassy in 2004.

Amin was born in Kabul, Kingdom of Afghanistan of Tajik descent.[4]

His family fled Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion of 1979, eventually settling in the U.S. He returned to his home country in 1988 to fight with the mujahideen under their commander Ahmed Shah Massoud, who assigned Amin to Afghanistan's embassy in Washington in 1990. Amin worked for the foreign ministry in various capacities until the government's fall to the Taliban in 1996. At the time of the 9/11 attacks, Amin was an employee of the Afghan mission to the United Nations, which was still in the hands of the pre-Taliban government. He held a master's degree in political science from St. John's University[4] and was mentioned in 2002 as one of 77 "People for the Future" in Newsweek.[5]

In 2007, drawing from his years in Japan, he wrote Afghan-Japan Relations: Lands Under the Rising Sun.[6] The book deals with historical relations and similarities between Japan and Afghanistan, and is the first to directly compare Afghanistan's and Japan's past and cultural heritage.[5]

Amin died of cancer in 2015, at an American hospital.[5]

References

  1. ↑ Most sources cite 1969 as Amin's year of birth but others cite 1967 or 1968
  2. ↑ "Amin: Northern Alliance will support U.S.". CNN.com. September 22, 2001. Retrieved February 15, 2015.
  3. ↑ "Alliance Advances". PBS. November 12, 2001. Retrieved February 15, 2015.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Profile: Haron Amin". Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in Tokyo. Archived from the original on August 19, 2014. Retrieved February 15, 2015.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Former Afghan Diplomat and Ambassador to Japan Dies". TOLO News. February 15, 2015. Retrieved February 15, 2015.
  6. ↑ Amin, Haron (2007). "Afghan-Japan Relations: Land Under the Rising Sun". Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in Tokyo. Retrieved February 15, 2015.

External links