Adnan Pachachi

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Adnan Pachachi bigraphy, stories - Ministers

Adnan Pachachi : biography

14 May 1923 –

Adnan al-Pachachi or Adnan Muzahim Ameen al-Pachachi () (born May 14, 1923) is a veteran Iraqi politician and diplomat. Pachachi was Iraq’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1959 to 1965 and Foreign Minister of Iraq from 1965 to 1967 during the Six-Day War with Israel; he again served as Permanent Representative to the UN from 1967 to 1969. After 1971, he spent a long period in exile. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Pachachi has been an important figure in Iraqi politics, often described as Iraq’s elder statesman. He rejected the role of President in the Iraqi Interim Government.

Quotes

  • "My feelings about Egypt and Gamel Abdel Nasser had deep rooted origins. In the first place I shared my father’s belief that Egypt was the most important Arab country and that Iraq should at all times have the best relations with her. My father, in and out of power, consistently called for the closest ties with Egypt. It cost him his political career in 1950. He remained very close to Abdul Nasser and supported him during the fateful days of the Suez War. Being a fervent Arab nationalist, I was naturally attracted by Nasser’s call for Arab unity, and during the Suez crisis I supported him without reservation. While I was at the United Nations at the height of a quarrel between Egypt and Qassim’s regime, I had maintained the closest relations with my Egyptian colleagues. I admired Abdul Nasser because he personified, more than anyone, the idea of Arab unity and seemed the only leader capable of achieving it." (p. 69)
Iraq’s Voice at the United Nations, 1959–1969: A Personal Record (Quartet Books, 1991)
  • "We are certain that sooner or later, the people of Asia and Africa will themselves help to expose the fraud that Israel is. They will understand that in the Arab world today, Zionism represents a force far more evil and dangerous than apartheid, an expansionist and aggressive force, bent upon dominating our lands and arresting the progress of our people." (p. 207)
Iraq’s Voice at the United Nations, 1959–1969: A Personal Record (Quartet Books, 1991)
  • "With the exception of Eisenhower’s noble stand against the Anglo-Franco-Israeli aggression in 1956, United States policies in the Arab Near East have been an unmitigated disaster for the Arabs." (p. 12)
Iraq’s Voice at the United Nations, 1959–1969: A Personal Record (Quartet Books, 1991)
  • "As a result of my consistently anti-colonialist stand at the United Nations, I have often been accused of being anti-Western. This is an unjust accusation. In their handling of colonial questions, the Western powers have often violated their own principles and values. The ideals of justice, freedom and equality, which they loudly proclaimed, were frequently ignored when it came to the colonies." (p. 9)
Iraq’s Voice at the United Nations, 1959–1969: A Personal Record (Quartet Books, 1991)
  • "I have always retained a soft spot for Khrushchev because of his wholehearted support for the Arab position in the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Algerian war of independence." (p. 11)
Iraq’s Voice at the United Nations, 1959–1969: A Personal Record (Quartet Books, 1991)
  • "Shorn of its pseudo-political and spiritual claims and pretensions, Zionism can be seen for what it really is: nothing more than an aggressive minority movement aiming at the subjugation of the majority and the usurpation of their country. In this, Zionism goes even further than similar movements of the European colons in Algeria and the white Boers in South Africa. In this connection, it is quite striking, perhaps revealing, that the Zionists in Palestine, the French colons in Algeria and the Afrikaners in South Africa use the same methods and profess the same false beliefs of racial superiority. Zionism did not lay claim to an empty wasteland; it laid claim to a country which for more than thirteen centuries, had been inhabited by an overwhelming Arab majority, by a people who shared a great common heritage with millions of others throughout Asia and Africa. Confronted with this claim, what was the Arab majority in Palestine expected to do? Were they – who constituted over 90 percent of the population – expected to surrender their homeland and accept meekly that the gates of their country be opened to unlimited immigration by aliens from all over the world until such time as those foreign immigrants became the majority of the population? What other peoples in the world have been asked to accept such a sacrifice? I beg you search your conscience and decide whether it is just for any people to be asked that they should in their country voluntarily become a minority and surrender their destiny to others. For thirty years the Arabs of Palestine waged a heroic but unequal fight against Britain. In 1936 they revolted, and their rebellion went on with undiminishing fury and intensity for three years and was only stopped by the outbreak of the Second World War. This revolt is one of the most stirring and heroic chapters in the history of Palestine. The Arab people of Palestine were unified as never before in their desperate struggle against the British colonialists and their Zionist allies. The Zionists, as always, have proved themselves in time of need as trusted and loyal friends of colonialism; they shall forever remain so because they would not be able to stand on their own feet for one minute without the constant help and support of the colonial powers." (p. 29-30)