Mohammad Haneef Atmar (

Dari Dari (; endonym: ), Dari Persian (, , or , ), or Eastern Persian is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the Afghan government's official term for the Persian language;Lazard, G.Darī – The New Persian ...

: محمد حنیف اتمر; born 10 September 1968) is an Afghan

politician A politician is a person who participates in Public policy, policy-making processes, usually holding an elective position in government. Politicians represent the people, make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles ...

and former

KhAD The ''Khadamat-e Aetla'at-e Dawlati'' (Pashto/ literally "State Intelligence Agency", also known as "State Information Services" or "Committee of State Security"), better known by the acronym KhAD, was the agency in charge of internal security, ...

agent. He served as the Minister of interior until he was removed from the Ministry by

Hamid Karzai Hamid Karzai (born 24 December 1957) is an Afghan politician who served as the fourth president of Afghanistan from 2002 to 2014, including as the first president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan from 2004 to 2014. He previously served a ...

in the wake of attacks on the June 2010 Afghan Peace Jirga. Before that he worked with several international humanitarian organisations and served as Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development and Minister of Education. In 2011, he was part of the Right and Justice party. During his time in office, he has visited several countries to get funding to stabilise Afghanistan. Atmar served as the National Security Advisor to Ashraf Ghani from 2014 to 2018, when he resigned due to disagreement with Ghani on certain issues. In late 2018, Atmar announced his candidacy for the April 2019 presidential elections, indicating he firmly believes a peace deal with the Taliban is possible. He later withdrew his candidature. On 4 April 2020, he was appointed as the

acting Acting is an activity in which a story is told by means of its enactment by an actor who adopts a character—in theatre, television, film, radio, or any other medium that makes use of the mimetic mode. Acting involves a broad range of sk ...

foreign minister, and approved on a permanent basis by the

Wolesi Jirga The House of Representatives of the People, or Da Afghanistan Wolesi Jirga (), was the lower house of the bicameral National Assembly of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, alongside the upper House of Elders. The House of Representatives of t ...

on 21 November 2020. He was sworn in on 4 February 2021. He fled to Turkey after the fall of Kabul to the

Taliban , leader1_title = Supreme Leader of Afghanistan, Supreme leaders , leader1_name = {{indented plainlist, * Mullah Omar{{Natural Causes{{nbsp(1994–2013) * Akhtar Mansour{{Assassinated (2015–2016) * Hibatullah Akhundzada (2016–present) ...

in August 2021.

Early life

Atmar was born in 1968 as son of Mohammad Asef Atmar in

Laghman Province Laghman (Persian language, Persian/Pashto: ) is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the eastern part of the country. It has a population of about 502,148, which is multi-ethnic and mostly a rural society. Laghman hosts a large numbe ...

of Afghanistan to an aristocratic

Pashtun Pashtuns (, , ; ;), also known as Pakhtuns, or Pathans, are an Iranic ethnic group primarily residing in southern and eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. They were historically also referred to as Afghans until 1964 after the ...

family. As a young adult, he was part of one of many

KHAD The ''Khadamat-e Aetla'at-e Dawlati'' (Pashto/ literally "State Intelligence Agency", also known as "State Information Services" or "Committee of State Security"), better known by the acronym KhAD, was the agency in charge of internal security, ...

special operations units, KhAD being the Afghan security and intelligence agency with strong ties to the

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. During the

Soviet–Afghan War The Soviet–Afghan War took place in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from December 1979 to February 1989. Marking the beginning of the 46-year-long Afghan conflict, it saw the Soviet Union and the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic o ...

, he fought against the Mujahideen and lost a leg during the Battle of Jalalabad in 1989. Atmar left for the

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after the fall of Kabul.

Studies and humanitarian work

In the UK he earned two degrees at the

University of York The University of York (abbreviated as or ''York'' for Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a public Collegiate university, collegiate research university in York, England. Established in 1963, the university has expanded to more than thir ...

: a diploma in Information Technology and Computers, and an M.A. in Public Policy, International Relations and Post-war Reconstruction studies, which he studied for from 1996 to 1997. He speaks fluent

Pashto Pashto ( , ; , ) is an eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family, natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan. It has official status in Afghanistan and the Pakistani province of Khyb ...

, English,

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, and

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

. In 1992 Atmar began advising on Afghanistan and

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

for humanitarian agencies, which he would continue for two years. Following that he went to the Norwegian Church Aid, where he served as Program Manager for six years until 2001. That same year he was hired as the Deputy Director General of the

International Rescue Committee The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a global humanitarian aid, relief, and development nongovernmental organization. Founded in 1933 as the International Relief Association, at the request of Albert Einstein, and changing its name in 1 ...

for Afghanistan, but after the

September 11th attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

, the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and the Bonn Agreement creating an Afghan Transitional Authority under

, Atmar left to join the new government.

Political career

Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development

In 2002, Atmar was invited to join the Transitional Government as the Minister of Rural Rehabilitation & Development and was confirmed with the same portfolio in the cabinet of the newly elected

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in December 2004. As one of the youngest members of cabinet and a technocrat, he directed his energies into transforming a dysfunctional and non-descript ministry into one of national significance that reached into every province of the country, overseeing an annual budget of nearly 500 million dollars at the end of his four-year tenure. Ercan Murat, Country Director for

UNDP The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human development. The UNDP emphasizes on developing local capacity towar ...

in Afghanistan described Atmar in 2004 as a human development champion. As head of a ministry that was considered a key consumer of international funds, his task entailed providing food security for the rural population, safe drinking water, alternatives for the drug-economy and building the necessary infrastructure for the economy in rural areas to develop.

Minister of Education

In May 2006, Atmar was sworn in as the Minister of Education after being approved by an overwhelming majority of the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

He was a member of the Presidential Oversight Committee.

Minister of Interior

In October 2008, Atmar was sworn in as the Minister of Interior after being approved by a majority of the National Assembly.

Later career

When the Truth and Justice party was founded in 2011, he became a member of the party.

Minister of Foreign Affairs

Atmar was appointed as the

minister of foreign affairs In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and foreign relations, relations, diplomacy, bilateralism, ...

by President

Ashraf Ghani Mohammad Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai (born 19 May 1949) is an Afghan former politician and economist who served as the president of Afghanistan from September 2014 until August 2021, when his government was 2021 Taliban offensive, overthrown by the Ta ...

on 4 April 2020. Ghani also nominated him as minister on permanent basis, pending approval by the National Assembly. His nomination was approved by 197 of the 246 lawmakers present in the

on 21 November, with 24 opposing, nine votes being blank and 16 being invalid. He was sworn in on 4 February 2021.

Collapse of the Afghan government

The

2021 Taliban offensive The 2021 Taliban offensive was a Offensive (military), military offensive by the Taliban insurgent group and allied militants that led to the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the end of the nearly 20-year War in Afghanistan (200 ...

culminated in the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. Atmar was evacuated from Afghanistan on 16 August 2021 to Turkey, alongside Turkish citizens and other Afghan officials by the Turkish government. Because no foreign government accorded diplomatic recognition to the Taliban, diplomats appointed by the previous government continued to operate most of Afghanistan's 65 embassies abroad, which rejected Taliban demands to allow them to take control of Afghan foreign policy.Jack Detsch & Robbie Gramer
Afghanistan's Diplomats Refuse to Represent a Terrorist Group
''Foreign Policy'' (7 January 2022). In exile, Atmar continued to identify himself as Afghan foreign minister. The

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

removed his name from its list of foreign ministers on 15 February 2022.

Works

* ''Development of Non-Governmental Organisations in Developing Countries'' * (with Arne Strand and Sultan Barakat) * ''Humanitarian Aid, War and Peace in Afghanistan: What to Learn?'' * ''Politics and Humanitarian Aid in Afghanistan and its Aftermath for the People of Afghanistan'' * ''Afghanistan or a Stray War in Afghanistan''. * ''The Challenge of Winning the Peace'', chapter written together with Jonathan Goodhand. published in: ''Searching for Peace in Central and South Asia,'' 2002

References

External links

Speech on Promoting Good Governance and Fighting Corruption in Afghanistan
at the

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as Brookings, is an American think tank that conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics (and tax policy), metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global econo ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Atmar, Mohammad Hanif 1968 births Living people Pashtun politicians Government ministers of Afghanistan Education ministers of Afghanistan Foreign ministers of Afghanistan Interior ministers of Afghanistan Alumni of the University of York People from Laghman Province