- Hedayat Arsala
Hedayat Amin Arsala is a prominent
Afghan Politician. He was Vice-President in the transitional administration ofAfghanistan fromDecember 22 2001 toDecember 7 ,2004 . He subsequently was elected Minister ofCommerce and was recently appointed the Senior Minister to President Karzai. He is one of the leading moderates among the members of Afghan PresidentHamid Karzai 's cabinet. In 2006, Mr. Arsala was nominated by Afghanistan to replaceKofi Annan as the Secretary General of theUnited Nations .Mr. Arsala, an ethnic
Pashtun descending from theJabar Khel tribe (which has close ties to the lateKing Zahir Shah ), grew up inKabul and attended high school there. He came to the United States for college and completed his studies for a doctorate in economics atGeorge Washington University . Between 1969 and 1987, Mr. Arsala worked for theWorld Bank , starting with their young professionals program and later holding various economic and senior operational posts. Early in his career in theUnited States , Amin Arsala was a foreign language trainer for three consecutivePeace Corps training programs.He is married with 3 children and has 4 grandchildren.
In 1987, Mr. Arsala left the
World Bank and returned to Afghanistan to join the Afghan resistance to overthrow the Soviet occupation. Since then he has been among a handful of influential and professionally trained Afghans developing self-government for the people of Afghanistan. During that liberation effort, he served as Senior Advisor and as a member of the Supreme Council of Afghan Unity ofMujahideen .For three years beginning in 1989, he served as
Minister of Finance of the Afghan Interim Government in exile.In 1993, the former King of Afghanistan,
Mohammed Zahir Shah , appointed Amin ArsalaForeign Minister and later made him a senior member of the Executive Council of theLoya Jirga , the traditional council of Pashtun tribal leaders who were to determine the shape of a new government for the nation. He played a key role in the Intra-Afghan Bonn Conference that produced a political roadmap after the fall of the Taliban regime and was appointed Vice Chairman and Minister of Finance of the Interim Administration.When the
Loya Jirga met in June 2002 to create a transitional government that would prepare the nation for popular elections, Hamid Karzai was chosen as president and, among his cabinet, Amin Arsala was named vice president. In that office, he worked as head of the Independent Administration Reform and Civil Service Commission, the National Census Commission, the Coordination Council and was a member of the Afghan National Security Council.ources
*http://www.export.gov/afghanistan/pdf/minister_bios.pdf
*http://www.rpcv.org/pages/sitepage.cfm?id=929
*http://www.rpcv.org/pages/sitepage.cfm?id=1015
*http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/10/9b3f9c9e-a057-4a42-ad87-7249e9c6ba92.html
*http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/APCITY/UNPAN022679.pdf
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