NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF IRAQ PRESENTS CREDENTIALS TO DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF UNOG

Mohamed Ali Alhakim, the new Permanent Representative of Iraq to the United Nations Office at Geneva, today presented his credentials to Sergei A. Ordzhonikidze, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva.

Prior to coming to Geneva, since June 2006, Mr. Alhakim had been serving as Ambassador and Department Director responsible for Arab countries and the League of Arab States; policy planning; and European and international relations. He was also Senior Economic and Political Adviser to the Vice President of Iraq. Previously, Mr. Alhakim had held several high-level posts in Government, having been elected to the first Iraqi National Assembly in May 2005, and serving as a member of its Foreign Relations Committee. In June 2003, he had been named Deputy Secretary-General of the Iraq Governing Council and had been nominated to the position of assistant to the Secretary-General of the Arab League.

Earlier, from 1980 to 2003, Mr. Alhakim lectured at several leading universities in the United States and had served as worldwide director and in other executive positions at leading high-tech international companies such as Wang Laboratory, Banyan Systems and Cambridge Technology Partners.

Having received his original bachelor’s degree in economics and statistics from Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, Mr. Alhakim went on to obtain a master of science degree from Birmingham University in the United Kingdom and a doctorate degree in management from the University of Southern California in the United States.

Mr. Alhakim was born in 1952 in Iraq.