Former German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, the first openly homosexual minister in a German government, has been diagnosed with acute leukemia, as was announced on Friday on his official Facebook account.

“Dr. Guido Westerwelle, founder of the Westerwelle Foundation and former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Germany, has been diagnosed with acute leukaemia,” said Alexander Vogel, manager of the Westerwelle Foundation, adding that “he is undergoing medical treatment in order to fully recover.”

Westerwelle was foreign minister from 2009 until the end of 2013 under the last government, in which the FDP stood as junior coalition partners to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats. He stepped down as vice chancellor and FDP chairman in 2011.

Source: Deutsche Welle