NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF SYRIA PRESENTS CREDENTIALS

Biographical Note

NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF SYRIA PRESENTS CREDENTIALS

(Based on information received from the Protocol and Liaison Service)

Fayssal Mekdad, the new Permanent Representative of Syria to the United Nations, presented his credentials today to Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Prior to his appointment, Mr. Mekdad served as Deputy Permanent Representative of Syria to the United Nations in New York (1999-2003).  He represented his country on the Security Council from 2002 to the present, presiding over some of its meetings.

      Mr. Mekdad joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Syria in 1994, and from 1996 to the present, served on his country’s delegations to sessions of the United Nations General Assembly.  He was a Rapporteur of the Special Committee on Decolonization.

Mr. Mekdad attended most of the major United Nations conferences, including those on human rights (Vienna, 1993), social development (Copenhagen, 1995) and the follow-up conferences held in New York (1995-2003).

He was a member of the Syrian delegation to the 2000 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.  He also attended the summit meetings of the Non-Aligned Movement in Colombia and South Africa, as well as ministerial meetings of the organization.  He was a member of the Syrian delegation to the South Summit in Havana, Cuba (June, 2000) and to ministerial meetings of the “Group of 77” developing countries since 1995.  In Turin, Italy, in 1994, he attended a course on human rights organized by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Mr. Mekdad earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature at the University of Damascus in 1978 and received a doctorate degree in English Literature at Charles University in Prague in 1992.

Born on 5 February 1954 in Ghassom, Dara’a, Syria, Mr. Mekdad is married with three children.

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