BIO FOR NEWLY APPOINTED JORDANIAN AMBASSADOR TO

UNCLAS AMMAN 010034 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PINR PREL EG JO SUBJECT: BIO FOR NEWLY APPOINTED JORDANIAN AMBASSADOR TO EGYPT ¶1. Omar Abdul-Monem Rifai has been appointed as the new Jordanian Ambassador to Egypt. Biographical information on Rifai follows. -------------- BIOGRAPHY: RIFAI, OMAR -------------- ¶2. Omar Rifai is a Muslim East-banker and the son of late Prime Minister Abdul Mun'em Rifai and Nahla Qudsi. The Rifai family has ancestral ties to Safad in the West Bank, but the family moved to Jordan in the 1830s and is now considered staunchly East-bank Jordanian. Omar Rifai is the cousin of the current President of the Senate, Zaid Rifai, and Zaid's son, Royal Court Minister Samir Rifai. Nahla Qudsi married the well-known Egyptian singer, Abdul Wahhab, after divorcing Omar Rifai's father. ¶3. Omar Rifai is a career diplomat and served as the Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from SIPDIS 2003 until his recent appointment as the Jordanian Chief of Mission in Cairo. He served as Ambassador to Italy and Permanent Representative of Jordan to the U.N. Agencies in Rome from 2000 to 2003. He concurrently served as the non-resident Ambassador to Bosnia-Hezegovina (2001-2003),San Marino (2002-2003),and Croatia (2003). From 1996 to 2000 Rifai served as Jordan's Ambassador to Israel. Prior to his posting in Israel, he held the position of Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process at the MFA and participated in the 1994 Jordan-Israel Peace Talks. Rifai served in Jordan's missions in Cairo, Bern, New York, London and Washington between 1976-1994. He originally joined the Jordanian Foreign Service in 1975. ¶4. Rifai lectured in political science part-time at the University of Jordan in 2004. He has a Ph.D. in International Relations from the American University in London. He took postgraduate courses in oriental studies at Oxford and has a masters degree in history from Georgetown University. Rifai received a bachelor's degree in government from Harvard University. He has attended Arab Summit Conferences, U.N. General Assembly sessions, Arab League Foreign Ministers' meetings and other regional and international conferences. ¶5. Rifai was born on October 5, 1952. He is married and has five children. He speaks Arabic, English, and French. Visit Embassy Amman's classified web site at http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/amman or access the site through the State Department's SIPRNET home page. HALE