Mauritania’s Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed elected new OIC secretary-general

Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, a Mauritanian diplomat and former foreign minister, was elected secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Thursday, Anadolu reports.

The election was held at an extraordinary meeting of OIC foreign ministers in the Saudi city of Jeddah, which also discussed the issue of Palestinian statehood and recent developments regarding Jerusalem.

Ould Cheikh Ahmed, 66, succeeds Chad’s Hussein Ibrahim Taha, who has served as OIC secretary-general since late 2021 and whose term will officially end in November.

Ould Cheikh Ahmed served as Mauritania’s foreign minister from 2018 to 2022, and as the UN secretary-general’s special envoy for Yemen from 2015 to 2018.

READ: OIC welcomes ‘historic’ Turkish-Saudi-Pakistani joint defense pact He also previously served as deputy […]