The Kuwaiti statesman Abdullah Yaccoub Bishara (born 1936) served as ambassador to Brazil and Argentina and as Kuwait's permanent representative to the United Nations for ten years before becoming the first secretary-general of the Gulf Cooperative Council in 1981.

Abdullah Yaccoub Bishara was born in Kuwait on November 6, 1936. He completed his primary and secondary education in Kuwait, then obtained his bachelor of arts degree from the College of Arts and Sciences at Cairo University (1955-1959). Upon his return to Kuwait he taught at al-Shuwaikh secondary school, from 1959 to 1961. Later he attended Balliol College, Oxford University, where he studied diplomacy and international relations.

Further study at St. John's University in the United States earned Bishara an M.A. degree in political science, after which he assumed his first diplomatic post, as second secretary for political affairs at Kuwait's embassy in Tunisia, 1963-1964. Between 1964 and 1971 he served as director of the Office...