H.E. Motaz Zahran is the current ambassador of Egypt to the United States. He formerly served as the assistant foreign minister and chief of cabinet at the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Zahran was previously the ambassador of Egypt to Canada, and has held numerous positions within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as deputy assistant foreign minister, and previously as advisor to the minister for Foreign Affairs on the Middle East peace process. He has also served at the Embassy of Egypt in Washington, DC (2007-11), as a political counselor and congressional affairs officer, and chargé d’affaires. During his diplomatic career he has served three times in the Cabinet of the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the Arab, Asian, as well as the Disarmament and International Security desks. From 2001-05, he served at the Embassy of Egypt in New Delhi, India. Zahran has also worked in the Office of the Assistant Foreign Minister for Arab and Middle Eastern Affairs and the Permanent Mission of Egypt to the League of Arab States in Cairo as well as the United Nations in New York. His primary field of multilateral expertise is in the disarmament, nonproliferation, and international security domain, where he held the post of rapporteur of the First Committee, later on to be deployed during his position as Egypt’s sous-sherpa to the Nuclear Security Summit process inaugurated in Washington, DC in 2010. He is currently a member on the United Nations .cretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters, as well as a member on the toard of Trustees for the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. Zahran is a graduate of University Mohamed V in Rabat, Morocco, and prior to joining Egypt’s foreign service, practiced law in Cairo, Egypt. Born in Cairo, Zahran speaks his native Arabic, and fluent in English and French.