Draft:Farid Zeineddine

His excellency Farid Zeineddine فريد زين الدين
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office 1946–1947
President	Shukri al-Quwatli
Prime Minister	Saadallah al-Jabiri Khalid al-Azm Jamil Mardam Bey
2nd Permanent Representative of Syria to the United Nations
In office 1951–1953
President	Hashim al-Atassi Fawzi Selu Adib Shishakli
Preceded by	Fares al-Khoury
Succeeded by	Rafik Asha
Personal details
Born	1907 (1907) Mount Lebanon, Ottoman Syria (present day Lebanon)
Died	January 17, 1973(1973-01-17) (aged 65–66) Damascus, Syria
Nationality	Syrian
Political party	League of Nationalist Action (1933–1939) National Bloc (until 1947)
Residence	Damascus
Alma mater	American University of Beirut, Sorbonne
Profession	Politician, Diplomat

Farid Omar Zaki Zeineddine (Arabic: فريد زين الدين, romanized: Farīd Zain ad-Dīn; born 1907 in Mount Lebanon; died 17 January 1973) was a Syrian Druze politician and diplomat. He was one of the founders of the Central Bank of Syria. He served as Permanent Representative of Syria to the United Nations.

Early life and education

Farid Zeineddine was born in Mount Lebanon in 1907. The family of Farid ibn Mohamed ibn Hasan Zeineddine belonged to the Syrian Druze religious community. Zeineddine later officially converted to Sunni Islam.

In 1925 he received his Bachelor's Degree at the American University of Beirut, his doctorate in 1932 at the Sorbonne for Doctor of Law and studied at the University in Berlin. He then taught business administration at the American University of Beirut.

Political life

French mandate

In 1929, Zeineddine decided to found a modern party with Darwish Miqdadi (1897–1961), which opposed the colonization of the Arab East by Europeans. With Shukri al-Quwatli he was involved in founding the Arab Liberation Society.

During the League of Nations Mandate for Syria and Lebanon there was political decision-making in Dīwāns, which was in madāfa (guest house) or salāmlik (reception hall) of the wealthy landowning bureaucracy and traders. In August 1933, Zayn, Darwish Miqdadi and about 50 others founded the League of Nationalist Action at Quara'il in the Lebanese mountains. Zeineddine was involved in this league, which also included Sabri al-Asali, Zaki al-Arsuzi, Munir al-Ajlani and Constantin Zureik. It gained some popularity in 1933 but ended with the death of the charismatic leader Abderrazak Al-Dandashli (1899-1935).

The Syrian political establishment at the time was dominated by landowners and Ottoman Empire educated politicians. The League of Nationalist Action was made up of professors, lawyers and civil servants who did not live on their parents' estates but tried to develop independent professional careers. Its members had all studied in Europe and US universities in the Middle East.

After independence

From 1961 to 1963, after the breakup of the Union, he conspired with a group of politicians to re-establish the United Arab Republic. He traveled to Cairo, held talks with Gamal Abdel Nasser and allied himself with disaffected officers of the Syrian Armed Forces. In March 1962 he drafted the political concept for a coup that ousted President Nazim al-Qudsi, Speaker of Parliament Maamun al-Kuzbari and Prime Minister Maarouf al-Dawalibi. The coup was led militarily by Colonel Abd al-Karim al-Nehlawi, who hoped the company would increase his power. A few days later, the Chief of the General Staff, Abdul Karim, led Zahr al-Din launched a counter-coup carried out by officers who wanted to preserve the balance of power established after the collapse of the United Arab Republic.

Zeineddine arranged a coup with Abdul Karim Zahr al-Din, who, like him, belonged to the Druze religious community, for the first week of March 1963. On March 8, the military committee of the Ba'ath Party carried out a successful conspiracy and relieved both men of their offices.

Diplomatic career

Zeineddine was a university professor in Iraq from 1933 to 1935, and worked as a lawyer in Syria until 1936. In 1937 he entered the foreign service, where he headed the politics department until 1938. In 1939 he left the foreign service when Syria could not prevent the annexation of the Sanjak of Alexandretta (modern day İskenderun) by Turkey, for what he blamed Prime Minister Jamil Mardam Bey.

Zeineddine became a supporter of Shukri al-Quwatli, who became President of Syria in 1943. From April 25, 1945, to June 26, 1945, Zeineddine was a member of the Syrian delegation at the San Francisco Conference and negotiated 1945 to 1946 in the UN Security Council on the withdrawal of French troops from Syria.

Upon Syrian independence in 1946, Zeineddine became Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (de facto Minister). From 1947 to 1951 he was the Syrian ambassador in Moscow. In 1949 he negotiated on behalf of President Hashim al-Atassi with Crown Prince Abd al-Ilah in Baghdad about plans for the integration of Syria and Iraq, a project that never got beyond the planning phase due to the short-lived nature of the Syrian government. From 1951 to 1953 he represented the Syrian government at the UN Headquarters.

From 1952 to 1958 he represented the Syrian government in Washington, D.C. At the same time, he was accredited to the government in Mexico City. After the Suez Crisis in August 1957, the CIA failed in Operation Strangle, a conspiracy against Shukri al-Quwatli, who had good relations with the Soviet Union used to. As a result, the Eisenhower administration expelled two employees of the Syrian Embassy in Washington, whereupon the Al-Quwatli government recalled Zeineddine from Washington. After Syria's merger with Egypt to form the United Arab Republic he represented the Union from 1958 to 1959 in Bonn as ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany.

Books

• Le Régime du Contrôle des Mandats Internationaux. (1933)
• National Movements for Liberty and Union in 19th-Century in Europe. (1935)

References

Category:Permanent Representatives of Syria to the United Nations Category:Damascus University alumni Category:Foreign ministers of Syria Category:1907 births Category:1973 deaths