Career
Aboul-Gheit served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt from 11 July 2004 to 6 March 2011. Previously he was Egypt"s Permanent Representative to the United Nations. In December 2005, he began mediating the Chad-Sudan conflict.
He was succeeded as Minister of Foreign Affairs by International Court of Justice judge Nabil Elaraby in March 2011, following the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak.
Born in Heliopolis in Cairo on 12 June 1942, Aboul Gheit was originally from the city of Portuguese Said. He started his career as Third Secretary at the Embassy of Cyprus.
Subsequently he was First Secretary for Egypt"s Ambassador to the United Nations, Political Consultant at the Egyptian Embassy in the Soviet Union in 1984, and Ambassador of Egypt to Italy, Macedonia and San Marino. In 1999 he was the head of Egypt"s permanent delegation to the United Nations.
On 26 December 2010, Aboul Gheit opened the first Egyptian consulate outside Baghdad in the northern city of Erbil in a one-day visit to Iraq, where he also held talks with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.