Farah Dakhlallah, NATO's new spokeswoman. (Credit: Photo X/@NATOpress)
NATO has a new spokeswoman, and she's Lebanese. On Monday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg appointed Farah Dakhlallah as the organization's new spokeswoman.
"I am delighted to welcome Farah Dakhlallah as NATO's new spokesperson," Stoltenberg said in a statement. He also said that "in a more dangerous world, clear and timely communication and engagement with the media are more important than ever."
Dakhlallah's challenges will be many, as Sweden prepares to become the 32nd member of the Atlantic Alliance after the Hungarian Parliament ratified its membership on Monday. On the same day, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke for the first time of sending Western ground troops to Ukraine, two years after the start of the Russian invasion.
Honor and privilege
"It is an honor and a privilege for me to be appointed NATO spokesperson, leading press and media for the alliance during this critical time," Dakhlallah remarked on the social media platform X following her appointment. She added: "NATO protects more than 1 billion people, safeguarding their freedom and democracy, and contributing to a more peaceful world."
According to a NATO press release regarding the appointment, Dakhlallah joins the Atlantic alliance with "extensive experience in both the public and private sectors," including the United Nations, the UK government and the pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca. The new spokeswoman also has experience with a number of media organizations.
IC and USJ alumnus
An alumnus of the International College of Beirut, Dakhlallah went on to study audiovisual arts at the Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth (USJ). She also obtained a master's degree in media and communications from the London School of Economics and another in international relations from Cambridge University.
She lived in London during her studies and while working for the British government, where she was an Arabic-speaking spokesperson for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
In 2016, she said in an interview on the "Women in Foreign Policy" platform that, as a woman, she did not find it difficult to work with Arabic-speaking countries. "The subjects covered are obviously difficult, with the region facing political polarization and intense violence, but these horrors affect women as much as men, and some of the best journalists in the region are women," she said. However, Dakhlallah admitted that she would have benefited from "improving her level of modern standard Arabic when she was young, which would have made her job much easier."
According to a newsletter published by ICR in 2015, Farah Dakhlallah is married to Adam Coutts, a British academic.
This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.
