Nasser al-Qudwa

Nasser Al Qudwa (Arabic: ناصر القدوة‎‎), also spelled Nasser Al-Kidwa, (born 1953), is the nephew of the late Yasser Arafat.

Al Qudwa was born in 1953. He attended Cairo University, graduating with a degree in dentistry in 1979. Then became an executive member of the Palestinian Red Crescent shortly after.

Al Qudwa joined Fatah in 1969. He became president of the General Union of Palestinian Students in 1974. He is also a central-committee member of Fatah.

Qudwa represented his uncle Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization as an unofficial observer in the United Nations in 1987, then as a permanent observer in 1991. In 2005, he was succeeded by Riyad H. Mansour, when he became Foreign Affairs Minister in the Palestinian Authority Government of February 2005. Nasser served as United Nations Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan in the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). Al Qudwa was appointed deputy to Kofi Annan, then special envoy to Syria for the U.N. and Arab League in March 2012. He was responsible for the contacts with Syrian opposition groups. In 2014, Al Qudwa resigned from his position as U.N. Deputy Mediator on Syria. In October 2016 it is rumored Arab states are promoting the idea Al-Qudwa would replace Mahmoud Abbas as head of the Palestinian Authority when the latter is expetced to resign.

Al Qudwa currently lives in New York City. Al Qudwa is the head of the Yasser Arafat Foundation.