Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Mouallem, who was the face of the Assad regime’s stagnation and intransigence in the Syrian civil war, died on November 16 in Damascus at the age of 79. The Syrian government, which announced this news “With sadness” did not provide any information on the causes of the disappearance of this “Veteran of diplomacy”, famous for his short stature and stout physique.
Born in 1941, into an elite Sunni family in Damascus, Walid Al-Mouallem entered his country’s foreign ministry in 1964 after studying economics at Cairo University. Between his missions in embassy – in Tanzania, in Jeddah, Madrid, London then Bucharest where he represented his country in the 1980s – and his posts at the central administration, he is gradually being noticed by his superiors.
In 1990, he was appointed Ambassador to Washington, a key post at a key time. President Hafez Al-Assad understood that the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR, his number one ally, forced him to draw closer to Washington. His overseas emissary complies and becomes a popular figure in diplomatic circles in the federal capital. His old-fashioned Arab nationalism, his affable nature and his ease of the Damascene grand bourgeois contrast with the brittle dogmatism of Abdel Halim Khaddam, the man who shaped the diplomacy of the Baathist regime between 1970 and 1984, who died on March 31, 2020 .
Promoted to Minister in 2006
” “Walid” as it was called then became the face of Syria in the United States, a bit like Bandar Ben Sultan was the face of Saudi Arabia ”, underlines Joseph Bahout, expert in international relations at the American University of Beirut. The ambassador represented his country in particular at the signing of the Oslo accords between Israel and the PLO, on the lawn of the White House, in September 1993. As a good negotiator, he took part in peace talks between his country and the Hebrew state, which failed in 2000, just before the death of Hafez Al-Assad.
His son Bashar Al-Assad, who succeeds him, recalls Walid Al-Mouallem in Damascus. He became the assistant to Farouk Al-Charah, Abdel Halim Khaddam’s successor at the head of foreign affairs, then his deputy in 2005, before being promoted to minister in 2006. The American diplomatic cable which reports on his appointment , disclosed by WikiLeaks, describes it as a “Pragmatic open-minded”.
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