Krikor Der Hagopian has presented his credentials to President Donald Trump, officially becoming Iraq’s Ambassador to the United States, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said. He is the first Armenian to hold the post, and Iraq’s first non-Shiite envoy to Washington in decades.
He is also Iraq’s first non-Shiite envoy to Washington in decades, in a position normally filled by a member of the country’s Muslim majority.
Der Hagopian is 49, a father of three, and holds a master’s in international relations from the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies. He advised former President Barham Saleh, ran the Directorate of International Relations under Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani from 2022 to 2026, and serves as a senior adviser to current Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi. He succeeds Nizar al-Khairallah, a former deputy foreign minister.
Regional diplomats described his selection to Al-Monitor as part of a wider effort by Baghdad to reset relations with Washington. Sources pointed to his record of maintaining smooth ties across successive US administrations and his experience working with international companies, which fits Baghdad’s push to move the relationship past security cooperation toward trade, investment and energy.
His brief is to follow through on al-Zaidi’s July visit to Washington and advance the economic, investment, energy and security agreements reached there, according to the Foreign Ministry.
“I view his appointment as an extremely positive signal that the prime minister has decided to send probably the most qualified member of his own team, the person with the most insights on how Washington works,” Victoria Taylor, a former US deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq and Iran now at the Atlantic Council, told Al-Monitor.
Simon Maghakyan, a postdoctoral fellow at Oxford who knew Der Hagopian during his graduate studies in Denver, described him as “a bright, sincere, and strategic thinker and bridge-builder.”
Armenians have lived in Iraq for centuries, and the community grew when survivors of the Genocide reached Baghdad, Basra and Mosul. Der Hagopian now represents that country in the American capital.
