Ahmed Aboul Gheit ( ar, أحمد أبو الغيط , also: Abu al-Ghayt, Abu El Gheyt, etc.) (born 12 June 1942) is an Egyptian politician and diplomat who has been Secretary-General of the

Arab League The Arab League ( ar, الجامعة العربية, ' ), formally the League of Arab States ( ar, جامعة الدول العربية, '), is a regional organization in the Arab world, which is located in Northern Africa, Western Africa, E ...

since July 2016. He was reappointed for a second term on 3 March 2021. Aboul-Gheit served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt from 11 July 2004 to 6 March 2011. Previously, between 1999 and 2004, he was Egypt's Permanent Representative to the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

. He was succeeded as Minister of Foreign Affairs by

ICJ The International Court of Justice (ICJ; french: Cour internationale de justice, links=no; ), sometimes known as the World Court, is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). It settles disputes between states in accordanc ...

judge

Nabil Elaraby Nabil Elaraby (Arabic: نبيل العربي; born 15 March 1935) is an Egyptian politician and diplomat who was Secretary General of the Arab League from 1 July 2011 to 3 July 2016. Previously, he was Foreign Affairs Minister of Egypt in Essam ...

in March 2011, following the overthrow of President

Hosni Mubarak Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak, (; 4 May 1928 – 25 February 2020) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the fourth president of Egypt from 1981 to 2011. Before he entered politics, Mubarak was a career officer in t ...

. He was elected Secretary-General of the Arab League in March 2016, and his term commenced on 3 July 2016. He was awarded the French Legion d'Honneur, first rank in 2002.

Early life

Born in Heliopolis in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

on 12 June 1942, Aboul Gheit was originally from the city of

Port Said Port Said ( ar, بورسعيد, Būrsaʿīd, ; grc, Πηλούσιον, Pēlousion) is a city that lies in northeast Egypt extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, north of the Suez Canal. With an approximate population of 6 ...

. He studied business at

Ain Shams University Ain Shams University ( ar, جامعة عين شمس) is a public university located in Cairo, Egypt. Founded in 1950, the university provides education at the undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate levels. History Ain Shams University was fou ...

, Cairo.

Career

Aboul Gheit joined the diplomatic corps in 1965 after completing university, and rose through the ranks of the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, occupying diplomatic positions in Rome, Nicosia, Moscow and New York. He participated in negotiations in 1978 of the

Camp David Accords The Camp David Accords were a pair of political agreements signed by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on 17 September 1978, following twelve days of secret negotiations at Camp David, the country retrea ...

, which led to the signing of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. In 1999, he was appointed Permanent Representative of Egypt to the United Nations, before being recalled to Cairo in 2004 to take the lead in diplomacy. Aboul Gheit started his career as Third Secretary at the Embassy of Cyprus. Later he was First Secretary for Egypt's Ambassador to the

, Political Consultant at the Egyptian Embassy in the Soviet Union in 1984, and Ambassador of Egypt to

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, Macedonia and

San Marino San Marino (, ), officially the Republic of San Marino ( it, Repubblica di San Marino; ), also known as the Most Serene Republic of San Marino ( it, Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino, links=no), is the fifth-smallest country in the world an ...

. In 1999 he was the head of Egypt's permanent delegation to the United Nations. Aboul Gheit served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt from 11 July 2004 to 6 March 2011. In December 2005, he began mediating the Chad-Sudan conflict. During the

Pope Benedict XVI Islam controversy The Regensburg lecture or Regensburg address was delivered on 12 September 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI at the University of Regensburg in Germany, which sparked international reactions and controversy. The lecture entitled " Faith, Reason and the U ...

in 2006, he said "this was a very unfortunate statement and it is a statement that shows that there is a lack of understanding of real Islam. And because of this we are hopeful that such statements and such positions would not be stated in order to not allow tension and distrust and recriminations to brew between the Muslim as well as the west.""In quotes: Muslim reaction to Pope"
BBC News, 16 September 2006. On 26 December 2010, Aboul Gheit opened the first Egyptian consulate outside Baghdad in the northern city of

Erbil Erbil, also called Hawler (, ar, أربيل, Arbīl; syr, ܐܲܪܒܹܝܠ, Arbel), is the capital and most populated city in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It lies in the Erbil Governorate. It has an estimated population of around 1,600,000. Hu ...

in a one-day visit to Iraq, where he also held talks with Iraqi President

Jalal Talabani Jalal Talabani ( ku, مام جەلال تاڵەبانی, translit=Celal Talebanî; ar, جلال طالباني ; 1933 – 3 October 2017) was an Iraqi Kurdish politician who served as the sixth president of Iraq from 2006 to 2014, as well as ...

. After the fall of Egyptian President

on 11 February 2011, he ceased to be Foreign Affairs Minister on 6 March 2011, after which he devoted himself to writing his memoirs.

Secretary-General of the Arab League

Aboul Gheit was elected

Secretary-General of the Arab League This is a list of the Secretaries-General of the Arab League since its founding in 1945. List of Secretaries-General See also

*Arab League {{Secretaries-General of the Arab League Secretaries General of the Arab League, * Lists of office-h ...

in March 2016, to succeed

Nabil el-Arabi Nabil Elaraby (Arabic: نبيل العربي; born 15 March 1935) is an Egyptian politician and diplomat who was Secretary General of the Arab League from 1 July 2011 to 3 July 2016. Previously, he was Foreign Affairs Minister of Egypt in Ess ...

. However, his election was not without some League members' criticism, due to his age. His term commenced on 3 July 2016. Gheit called the

2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria The 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria, code-named Operation Peace Spring ( tr, Barış Pınarı Harekâtı) by Turkey, was a cross-border military operation conducted by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and the Syrian National Ar ...

a "blatant violation of Syria's sovereignty". On 11 May 2021, Gheit condemned Israeli air strikes on Gaza as "indiscriminate and irresponsible".

Honours

* : Grand Cross of the

Order of the Republic (Egypt) The Order of the Republic is an Egyptian order of knighthood. History The Order was founded in 1953 to celebrate the rebirth of the Republic of Egypt. Classes The order is composed of the following classes of merit : * First class - Grand C ...

* : Grand Cross of the

Order of Merit (Egypt) The Order of Merit is an Egyptian order of merit The Order of Merit (french: link=no, Ordre du Mérite) is an order of merit for the Commonwealth realms, recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for ...

* : Grand Officer of the

Ordre national du Mérite The Ordre national du Mérite (; en, National Order of Merit) is a French order of merit with membership awarded by the President of the French Republic, founded on 3 December 1963 by President Charles de Gaulle. The reason for the order's esta ...

* : Commander of the

Order of Merit of the Italian Republic The Order of Merit of the Italian Republic ( it, Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana) is the senior Italian order of merit. It was established in 1951 by the second President of the Italian Republic, Luigi Einaudi. The highest-ranking ...

* : First Class of the

Order of the Serbian Flag Order of the Serbian Flag ( sr, Орден српске заставе) is the second highest state order of Serbia. The order is awarded by the decree of the President of Serbia on special occasions. It is awarded for development of internationa ...

* : Medal of the

Order of Friendship The Order of Friendship (russian: Орден Дружбы, ') is a state decoration of the Russian Federation established by Boris Yeltsin by presidential decree 442 of 2 March 1994 to reward Russian and foreign nationals whose work, deeds a ...

Publications

* ''Egypt's Foreign Policy in Times of Crisis: My Testimony'', Cairo, The American University in Cairo Press, 2019 * ''Witness to War and Peace: Egypt, the October War, and Beyond'', Cairo, The American University in Cairo Press, 2018

References

, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Aboul Gheit, Ahmed 1942 births Ambassadors of Egypt to Italy Ambassadors of Egypt to San Marino Ambassadors of Egypt to North Macedonia Egyptian diplomats Foreign ministers of Egypt Living people Politicians from Cairo Permanent Representatives of Egypt to the United Nations Secretaries General of the Arab League