The Foreign Ministry of Algeria

Minister of Foreign Affairs

Abdelkader Messahel was born on July 11th 1949 in Tlemcen, Algeria. He has over 46 years of experience in politics and journalism and has expertise in African affairs. He is able to speak Arabic, French, English and Spanish according to the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Algeria.

Messahel started his political career as the leader of the “Mouvements de Libération” in the Foreign Ministry in 1971. He then began to represent Algeria on the international stage over the next decades: in 1979 he became the Algerian Ambassador to the United Nations in New York, in 1988 he became the Algerian Ambassador to Burkina Faso, and in 1997 to the Netherlands. After this he returned to Algeria in 2000 and worked as a delegate to the Minister of Foreign Affairs regarding African affairs. In 2012 he took a job in the Algerian Foreign Ministry working in Maghreb affairs. In 2013 Messahel was named Minister of Communication, and in 2014 he returned to the Foreign Ministry to work again in Maghreb Affairs. In 2015 he started working in the African Union as a Minister of Maghreb Affairs, and since 2017 Messahel has been the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria.