If the lives of men can be measured in terms of years, ideologies in decades, and nations in centuries, then the unit measuring civilizations, born of the interaction among peoples, would be the millennium.

He and military commanders allied to him were thought to have opposed Bouteflika's bid for a second term and backed Benflis. He never paid back the money "he reserved for a new foreign affairs ministry's building". He was the first child of his mother and the second child of his father (Fatima his half-sister preceded him).

He has also served as president of the United Nations General Assembly. He presided over the end of the bloody Algerian Civil War in 2002 and he ended emergency rule in February 2011 amidst regional unrest. During the Libyan civil war he refused to allow coalition aircraft to pass through Algerian airspace.