Ravan A. G. Farhâdi
Professor Abdul Ghafoor Ravan Farhâdi (born 23 August 1929 in Kabul, Afghanistan) is an Afghan academic and diplomat who served as Afghanistan's Ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 2006. Early life and education Farhâdi is an ethnic Tajik from Kabul. He graduated from Lycée Esteqlal in 1948. Farhâdi studied at the Institut d'études politiques in Paris, France, achieving a MA degree in 1952. He then earned his Ph.D. at the Sorbonne, in Indo-Iranian Studies, in 1955. His paper was on "le Persan parlé en Afghanistan", later translated to English and Russian. Farhâdi speaks French, English and Persian fluently. Career as diplomat In 1955, Farhadi assumed a position as lecturer in the History of political thought at Kabul University. In 1958, he started his diplomatic career as First Secretary at the Afghan Embassy in Karachi, Pakistan. From 1961 to 1962, he was Director of United Nations Affairs at the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Following that, he was appointed Counsellor and Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, D.C., United States. In 1964, he returned to Kabul to work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 1964 till 1968, he served as Director-General for Political