Statesmen's Forum: Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari

The CSIS Middle East Program will host a Statesmen's Forum on "A View from Iraq and the Region"

With:

His Excellency Hoshyar Zebari
Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Iraq

Moderated by:

Dr. Jon B. Alterman,
Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geostrategy and Director, CSIS Middle East Program

Hoshyar Zebari serves as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Iraq, a position he has held since September 2003. Prior to taking up his current position, he was head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP)’s International Relations Bureau for eleven years. In that role, he carried out public diplomacy and media outreach and organized conferences for the Iraqi opposition. He was also a member of the Iraqi Opposition Coordination and Follow-Up Committee in 2002.

Mr. Zebari has had a long career in international and domestic diplomacy. He has held several elected positions within the KDP since entering its leadership’s Central Committee in 1979, including as its chief foreign representative between 1988 and 1991. He acted as the KDP’s spokesman during the Gulf War and then as its liaison with the coalition’s Operation Provide Comfort and Military Coordinating Centre in Zakho until 1995. He has also served as an elected member in the first Kurdistan National Assembly. In 1992 Mr. Zebari was elected to the Executive Council of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) and in 1999 to its Leadership Council.