Hoshyar Zebari

Hoshyar Zebari is the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister of Iraq. He was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2003 until 2014. A Kurd originally from Aqrah, a city inIraqi Kurdistan, Zebari holds a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Essex, England and studied political science in Jordan. He was the foreign spokesperson for the Kurdistan Democratic Party in the 1990s and represented the party to both the United Kingdom and the United States.

He was appointed Foreign Minister of Iraq in 2003 by the Iraqi Governing Council and held the post for the Iraqi Interim Government, Iraqi Transitional Government and the first permanent government.

In July 2012, Zebari said that Al-Qaeda in Iraq members went to Syria, where the militants previously received support and weapons.

On 11 July 2014, Zaberi was replaced as foreign minister by Hussain al-Shahristani, Iraq’s deputy prime minister, who assumed the position in an acting capacity, after Kurdish politicians withdrew from the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.