Yaşar Aliyev

Yaşar Teymur oğlu Aliyev (Azeri: "Yaşar Əliyev", also "Yashar") (b. August, 1955) is the ambassador of Azerbaijan to the United States since November, 2006.

Background and education

Yashar Aliyev is fluent in English, Arabic, Russian and Turkish. He is married and has two children.

Aliyev attended Azerbaijan State University from 1972 to 1977, where he achieved the school's highest degreea in Oriental Studies. He then attended the Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Russia, for post-graduate work at the Oriental Studies Institute, from 1980 to 1982. He also studied for one year in the early 1990s at the Diplomatic Academy of Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Political and diplomatic career

After graduation from the University Aliyev worked for academic institutions in Azerbaijan, and served in the Soviet Union's military and trade missions in Iraq (1977-1979) and Kuwait (1985-1988.) Aliyev joined Azerbaijan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1989 as Political Officer in the Department of Information and Political Analysis, later serving as First Secretary in 1990 and Deputy Head in 1991. In 1992, he headed the Ministry's Department of International Organizations, before beginning his diplomatic career at the United Nations in New York City in the same year, serving as Counselor on Political Affairs at the Permanent Mission of Azerbaijan until June 2001.

During that time, he served two one-year terms as chargé d'affaires, in 1993 and in 2001. He was also his country's delegate to the First and Fourth Committees at the 47th - 56th sessions of the United Nations General Assembly.

He was appointed as his country's Permanent Representative to the UN in January 2002, and presented his credentials to the Secretary-General of the United Nations on 12 March 2002. Aliyev worked as Permanent Representative until November, 2006. He was also Vice-President of the 59th session of the General Assembly, Vice-President of the Economic and Social Council in 2004-2005, and Vice-President of the "United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects" in 2001, and Chairman of the UN's Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) in 2005-2006. During his tenure as Permanent Representative Azerbaijan was elected to the UN Economic and Social Council (2002), UN Commission on Human Rights (2005), and UN Human Rights Council (2006.) In 2004, the item entitled "The situation in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan" was included in the agenda of the General Assembly.

External links

* [http://www.washdiplomat.com/ambprof/Azerbaijan.html The Washington Diplomat Newspaper Ambassador profile]
* [http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/bio3695.doc.htm Biography on UN.org]
* [http://azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/64_folder/64_articles/64_un_yasharaliyev.html Yashar Aliyev. The Nagorno-Karabakh Question:UN Reaffirms the Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity of Azerbaijan."Azerbaijan International", Winter 1998, N.6.4]