Mekdad takes on the role of top diplomat, while the Syrian government remains largely isolated internationally.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has appointed Faisal Mekdad as the new foreign minister, replacing Walid al-Moallem, who died almost a week ago. This is evident from a statement by the Presidency.
Mekdad will be replaced as deputy foreign minister by the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Jaafari, who in turn will be replaced by the ambassador in Vienna Bassam al-Sabbagh, the statement said on Sunday.
Moallem, an unwavering al-Assad government official who held his job during a decade of conflict and multiple reshuffles, died Monday at the age of 79.
The government announcement did not state the cause of death, but it was believed that his health had been deteriorating for some time.
His 66-year-old successor, Mekdad, began a career in the Syrian Foreign Ministry in 1994 and has been Deputy Foreign Minister since 2006.
He accompanied Moallem to most meetings and conferences and came in to make statements when Moallem’s health began to deteriorate.
Mekdad, who received a PhD in English literature from Charles University in Prague, was born in 1956 in the village of Ghasam in the southern Deraa province.
In 1995 he joined the Syrian delegation to the United Nations and was his country’s permanent representative to the United Nations from 2003 to 2006 before becoming Deputy Foreign Minister.
In May 2013, armed men abducted his 84-year-old father, Walid Mekdad, before freeing him weeks later in exchange for rebels who had released 43 prisoners.
Internationally isolated
Mekdad takes on the role of top diplomat, while the Syrian government remains largely isolated internationally, despite recent efforts to normalize relations with the Gulf states.
Seven years after breaking off diplomatic relations, the United Arab Emirates opened its embassy in Damascus in 2018, followed by Bahrain.
Al-Assad and Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan spoke on the phone in March for the first time since the outbreak of the war in Syria in 2011.
Mekdad is backed by Jaafari, who has been the Syrian government’s toughest defender at the United Nations since 2006, especially after the conflict broke out in 2011.
Jaafari, who was born in 1956 and is married to an Iranian, comes from Damascus and belongs to the same Alawite religious minority as Assad.
Mekdad will be replaced as Deputy Foreign Minister by Syria’s UN Ambassador Bashar Jaafari [File: Mukhtar Kholdorbekov/Reuters]Jaafari holds a degree in French literature and translation, a doctorate in political science from the Sorbonne in Paris and speaks fluent English and Persian in addition to his native Arabic.
His first diplomatic assignment was to Paris, and later he moved to positions in New York and Indonesia.
Al-Assad’s bloody crackdown on peaceful demonstrators in 2011 sparked a conflict that has now lasted nearly a decade, killing more than 380,000 people and displacing millions both domestically and abroad.
Nine years later, al-Assad’s forces control roughly 70 percent of the country.
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