Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani is a Bahraini engineer and retired lieutenant general. He has been the secretary-general of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) since April 1, 2011. He is the fifth GCC secretary-general and the first with a military background since the GCC was established. On Wednesday, Al-Zayani held a meeting with the UN’s Special Envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths. During the meeting, they discussed the consultations being conducted by the UN envoy with all parties concerned with the Yemeni crisis in discussing ways of resuming political negotiations and reaching a political solution to end the conflict. Al-Zayani assured the support of the GCC countries coinciding with the efforts put forth by the UN envoy to Yemen, and their consistent desire to reach a peaceful political solution. Al-Zayani was born in Muharraq in Bahrain. He graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in the UK, and is also a 1978 graduate of the aeronautical engineering program in Perth, Scotland. In 1980, he received his master’s degree in logistics management from the Air Force Institute of Technology in Dayton, Ohio. In 1986 he earned a Ph.D. in operations research from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He attended command and general staff courses in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1988 and received the Sword of Honor along with the title of Master Logistician from the US Army. In 2008, he attended the leaders development program at Harvard University.