Haidar Hadi

Haidar Mansour Hadi Al-Athari (born 27 July 1970), known as Haidar Hadi, is an Iraqi politician who currently serves as the ambassador of the Republic of Iraq to Russia and Belarus. Born in Baghdad, Iraq he went to school in his home city and moved to the United Kingdom in 1991. After graduating from university in the UK he worked as an export manager for Canary Trading Company Limited from 1997 to 2000. In 2000, he took up the role of Project Manager at Webstar PLC until 2003. He then moved to Jordan initially and then back to Iraq. He has been an ambassador for the Iraqi government since October 2009. Haidar has already served as the ambassador to Minsk, Belarus for five and a half years and the ambassador to Moscow, Russia for three years. He was the first Iraqi ambassador to serve in Belarus since the Iraqi embassy was shut down in 2003, following the U.S. invasion of Iraq. After his post in Minsk, he returned to Baghdad. During his time in Baghdad, he was part of several delegations going to countries such as Egypt and South Korea. In December 2016, Haidar arrived in Moscow to begin his second post as ambassador which lasted three years before he was transferred to Amman, Jordan where he served until 2022 before returning to Baghdad. Back at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad, Haidar led the European Department until he was posted to Russia for a second time in June 2024. Haidar has been directly involved in setting up two destinations for Iraqi Airways, Minsk and Moscow, and, as a result, there are regular, scheduled flights between Baghdad and the two European cities. In October 2014, he was made a Distinguished Fellow at the New Westminster College in British Columbia, Canada.