Dr. Zalmai Rassoul, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

In January 2010 Dr. Zalmai Rassoul received the confidence vote of the Afghan NationalAssembly to serve as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.Prior to his appointment as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Zalmai Rassoul served asNational Security Advisor of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan since June 2002. AsNational Security Adviser, Dr. Rassoul rendered a constructive role in collaboratingactivities of Afghan security institutions with Afghanistan’s foreign policy. Moreover,among his numerous responsibilities included conducting national threat assessments andNational Security PolicyDr. Rassoul has accompanied H.E. President Hamid Karzai on all official visits since theestablishment of the Interim Administration in 2001.Prior to his appointment as National Security Adviser by President Karzai, Dr. Rassoul wasnominated by President Karzai as the Minister of Civil Aviation, and unanimously approvedby the Cabinet in March 2002. Under his able leadership, Afghanistan’s aviation sector wasrevived after many years of United Nations sanctions against the Taliban and Afghanistan.Dr. Rassoul played an important role in Afghanistan’s readmission to the International CivilAviation Organization (IATA) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).Prior to his service in the current Afghan Government, Dr. Rassoul served as a delegate tothe historic November 2001 Bonn Conference. Following the Bonn Conference, heaccompanied President Karzai to Kabul for the inauguration of the Afghan InterimAdministration.Since 1998, Dr. Rassoul devoted his full attention to the convening of the Emergency LoyaJirga (Grand Assembly) as the director of the Secretariat of His Majesty, Mohammad ZaherShah, the Former King of Afghanistan. Under Dr. Rassoul’s leadership, the Secretariat inRome played a key role in the future political transition of Afghanistan. Prior to the BonnConference, His Majesty dispatched numerous delegations to world capitals, Afghanistan’sneighbors, and Afghanistan itself to build support for the convening of the Emergency LoyaJirga. Dr. Rassoul accompanied President Karzai, at that time a leading member of theExecutive Committee of the Loya Jirga, on those missions. Dr. Rassoul was distinctly suitedfor this work as a result of his long term, close contact with Afghan resistance and his 1980founding and publishing of the monthly publication Afghan Reality created to increaseawareness and be a voice of information from inside Afghanistan to the internationalcommunity regarding the plight of the Afghan people. Dr. Rassoul has been deeplypolitically active for several decades in the struggle for the freedom of Afghanistan and theright of the Afghan people to decide their future in accordance with their free will.Dr. Rassoul was born in Kabul, Afghanistan and attended Istiqlal French High Schoolwhere he graduated as the valedictorian. Subsequently, he travelled to France to study on ascholarship at the Paris Medical School and received his M.D. in 1973.