Jabatan tersebut telah kosong selama hampir satu tahun karena menteri luar negeri terdahulu meletakkan jabatan setelah ia disebutkan dalam satu laporan independen mengenai penyimpangan dalam program minyak-untuk-pangan PBB bagi Irak.
The post had been vacant for nearly a year before that because the previous foreign minister had quit after he was named in an independent report on irregularities in the United Nations' oil-for-food programme for Iraq.