Farouk al-Sharaa
| Farouk al-Sharaa link (Politician, diplomat) | |
|---|---|
| File:Farouk al-Sharaa.jpg | |
| Born | 10 December 1938 Daraa, Syria |
| Alma mater | University of Damascus, University of London |
Some reports say Farouk al-Sharaa is related to Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa | |
Farouk al-Sharaa is a Syrian politician and diplomat who was one of the most prominent officials in the government of Ba'athist Syria. He was Foreign Minister from 1984 to 2006, then Vice President until 2014.
Farouk al-Sharaa is a Sunni Muslim from Daraa, the birthplace of the insurgency that began in March 2011. European diplomats have said that Sharaa found himself torn between his loyalty to the Assad government and the bloodshed and destruction suffered by his home town.[1]
Syrian Foreign Minister
As Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa negotiated with many countries, much of which negotiation involved Syria's relationships with Lebanon and Israel. Sharaa maintained that Israel should give back all of the Golan Heights, the territory it took from Syria in the 1967 War. Between 1991 and 1993 he led negotiations in the Barcelona Process and with the US Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
He was involved in two attempts to negotiate a reconciliation with Israel in December 1999, when he held a meeting with Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton in the White House, with the goal of resuming Israeli–Syrian peace negotiations that were stalled since early 1996. The peace talks summit continued until January 2000 in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, but were inconclusive.
Gossiping about Prince Charles
In November 2010, The Guardian reported:
Some members of the Syrian regime appeared to show "stark ignorance" of the outside world, one US ambassador in the Middle East reported in a leaked cable. The Syrian foreign minister, Farouk al-Sharaa, had assured Jordanian officials, who passed it on to the US ambassador in Amman, "that British Prince Charles would soon be implicated in a Scottish judicial investigation into Princess Diana's death, and was consequently planning a trip to Iraq and Iran 'to seek the support of the Muslim world'". This "tabloid-like story" showed how out of touch with reality he was, the Jordanian foreign minister confided in February 2004. "They just don't get it."[2]
Vice President
As Vice President, Sharaa met with Pope Benedict XVI in September 2007 to discuss the plight of Iraqi Christian refugees in Syria, the Middle East peace process, and the role and status of the Church in Syria. After 2011, Sharaa was the chairman of the "national dialogue" committee in Syria. In 2000 Sharaa was also appointed to the Ba'ath party’s leadership and his term ended in July 2013.
On 19 July 2014, his term in the Vice President office ended.
Invitation from Ahmed al-Sharaa
Following the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 and the establishment of the Syrian transitional government under former Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, Farouk accepted an invitation from Ahmed al-Sharaa to attend a forthcoming national dialogue conference in Damascus.[3] However, he ultimately did not appear among those who took part in the Syrian National Dialogue Conference in February 2025.[4]
References
- ↑ "Syria’s Assad reappoints woman VP but mum on Sharaa"
- ↑ "US embassy cables flush out royal gossip"
- ↑ "The leader of the new administration in Syria met Farouk al-Sharaa and invited him for a national dialogue"
- ↑ "Syria: HTS-leader may invite ex-vice president Farouk al-Sharaa to National Dialogue Conference"
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