Seghir Mostefaï – Wikipedia

Seghir Mostefaï , born in 1926 in Bordj Bou Arreridj, Algeria, is a lawyer and senior Algerian official. Graduated in law and economics of the Sorbonne, he is the governor of the Bank of Algeria for almost twenty years.

He notably played a key role in resolving the American hostage crisis in Iran. He died the January 21, 2016 in Algiers ^{[ first ] , [ 2 ]} .

Seghir Mostefaï was one of the negotiators of the Evian agreements, signed the 18 mars 1962 In Évian-les-Bains (Haute-Savoie, France), between representatives of France and those of the provisional government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA) ending the Algerian War, in charge of economic and financial issues ^{[ 3 ]} .

Seghir Mostefaï prepared the creation of the central bank of Algeria (BCA) from the independence of Algeria during the summer of 1962 and was the first governor until 1981 ^{[ 4 ]} . He also immediately represented Algeria in international financial institutions, in particular IMF and World Bank ^{[ 5 ]} .

The Algerian dinar was issued in 1964 ^{[ 6 ]} . As such he signed ^{[ 7 ]} The first tickets issued by Algeria ^{[ first ]} . From the 1970s, Algeria was the first Arab and African country to print its currency. It has also enabled several African countries to acquire their own broadcasting institutes and create their national currencies.

In 1971, his negotiations with the United States Federal Reserve enabled him to exchange dollars for gold and to constitute the first golden stock of Algeria when the United States had already decided to end up to end The golden convertibility of the dollar, officially reached by the decision of President Richard Nixon on August 15, 1971.

Within the International Monetary Fund, Seghir Mostefaï was at the end of his mandate the dean of the board of directors. He was one of the three founders ^{[ 8 ] , [ 9 ]} of the group of 24, representing the interests of the countries of development in the country of the G8.

From the start of the American hostage crisis in Iran, several negotiation attempts and secret missions of good offices were carried out by different personalities, notably Ramsey Clark (at the request of Jimmy Carter), Olof Palme, Kurt Wadheim (as Secretary General of the United Nations), Hilarion Capucci. All these attempts failed because of the complexity of the problem of Iranian assets held in American financial institutions in the United States and Europe, frozen by the United States since the November 14, 1979 .

The November 2, 1980 , the Iranian parliament fixes the conditions for the release of the hostages. The main condition concerns the return of Iranian assets.

At the end of 1980, the United States and Iran accepted Algerian mediation. A team made up of Algerian ambassadors to the United States and Iran, led by Foreign Minister Mohamed Benyahia, embarks on a diplomatic shuttle between Washington and Tehran to simply transmit messages between the two countries, from where their Nickname in the American “mailmen” press (postal workers).

Very quickly, this mission reaches its limits, negotiation is completely blocked, the American and Iranian positions being too far away and the Algerian delegation having no competence to intervene in these negotiations on a very complex financial and legal litigation (Iranian, Iranian debt, Gel of Iranian assets in the United States and in the European subsidiaries of American banks, transfers of gold and titles). The Minister of Foreign Affairs then called upon to Seghir Mostefai because of his experience of financial arbitrations between states and problems of claims and sovereign debts. He joined the mediator team ^{[ ten ] , [ 11 ]} and ultimately makes it possible to put an end to the crisis by the Algiers agreements of January 19, 1981 , by proposing a system acceptable by the United States and Iran and directly involving the central bank of Algeria: first, the return of part of the Iranian assets and the settlement of part of the Iranian debt to creditors Americans by a complex mechanism of banking transfer through sequestration accounts including an account of the central bank of Algeria opened to the Bank of England to receive the funds returned by the United States and an account of the Iranian State opened with the central bank of Algeria; and secondly by providing for the establishment of an arbitral tribunal responsible for dealing with the various unanswered disputes and to come between the two countries (in) ^{[ twelfth ]} .