Biographical Note

UNIS/BIO/678

10 June 2003

 

NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF MOROCCO PRESENTS CREDENTIALS

VIENNA, 10 June (UN Information Service) -- The new Permanent Representative of Morocco to the United Nations (Vienna), H.E. Omar Zniber, presented his credentials today to Antonio Maria Costa, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Vienna (UNOV).

Prior to taking up this position, Mr. Omar Zniber was Director of the Directorate of the United Nations and International Organizations in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation in Rabat.  He served as Chief of the United Nations Division, Directorate of the United Nations and International Organizations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation (1996-1999), as Counselor in charge of disarmament issues, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the World Health Organization (WHO) at the Permanent Mission of Morocco in Geneva, (1989-1996), and as Cabinet Head in the Secretariat of State for Foreign Affairs (March 1986-1989).

Mr. Zniber has both organized and participated in numerous seminars and international conferences, often as a delegation head, both inside Morocco and in Europe and Africa.  These included: President of the Permanent Commission on the Follow-Up of Nuclear Issues in 2001; Chief of the Moroccan Delegation to the Conference on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines held in Maputo, Mozambique, in 1999; Head of the Moroccan Delegation to the Multilateral Conference on Peace in the Middle East, Vienna, in 1993; and Coordinator of the Non-Aligned Countries to the Conference on Disarmament from 1989-1996. From 1992 to the present, Mr. Zniber participated in the activities of the United Nations General Assembly sessions and other multilateral conferences. From 1989 to 1996, he was a participant in the Conferences on the Revision of International Treaties, which included the Treaties on Nuclear Non-Proliferation, on the Prohibition of Chemical and Biological Weapons, and the Convention on the Prohibition of Certain Conventional Weapons. 

Born on 2 September 1956 in Salé, Morocco, Mr. Zniber received a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Law, International Relations Section, University Mohamed V for Legal and Social Sciences, Rabat, Morocco, in 1981. In 1983, he received a Diploma in Higher Studies (“Diplome d’Etudes Appronfondies”) in International Public Law, University of Assas Panthéon, Paris II, and, in 1986, a doctorate in International Public Law on State Succession and Border Treaties in Africa, University of Assas Panthéon, Paris II.

He is married and has two children.

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