H.E. Fuad Mohammed Hussein

H.E. Fuad Mohammed Hussein is Iraq’s deputy prime minister for international relations affairs and was sworn in as foreign minister of the Republic of Iraq on June 6, 2020. He previously served as deputy prime minister for economic affairs and minister of finance.

Hussein is a prominent Iraqi politician who has held several senior executive positions in both the Iraqi federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government. He served as chief of staff of the Kurdistan Region Presidency, with the rank of minister and as a member of the KRG Cabinet from July 2005 to September 2018. He was also an alternate member of the Iraqi Governing Council from March to June 2004. Following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, he served as one of the main supervisors at Iraq’s Ministry of Education, overseeing the resumption of schooling and changes to the national curriculum.

In 1967, Hussein moved to Baghdad, where he joined the Kurdish Student Union and later the Kurdistan Democratic Party. In 1975, he moved to the Netherlands, where he led the Kurdish Students Union abroad and later served as deputy head of the Kurdish Institute in Paris in 1987.

Hussein studied English literature at Baghdad University’s College of Education and later studied political science and international relations at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where he earned postgraduate degrees, including a doctorate in international relations in 1984. He has authored publications including The Legal Concept of Self-Determination and the Kurdish Affair and Economic Growth and Development in Iraqi Kurdistan. He speaks Kurdish, Arabic, Dutch, and English.