Alper Coşkun
Alper Coşkun is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. He leads the Türkiye and the World Initiative in the Europe Program, where he focuses on Turkey, particularly its foreign, defense and security policies, as well as its relations with the United States, Europe and its region at large.
He is a retired career diplomat of 32 years with extensive experience in bilateral and multilateral settings. He was the director general for international security affairs at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2016-2019), covering NATO, transatlantic relations, Euroatlantic security/defense, and arms control/disarmament matters. Before that, he was ambassador to Azerbaijan (2012-2016), overseeing one of Turkey’s most active and extensive diplomatic missions, with a comprehensive multi-agency composition.
He has held positions within the Turkish Foreign Ministry at various levels on issues related to maritime jurisdiction affairs, counterterrorism/intelligence, and NATO/Euroatlantic security matters. He has served in the cabinets of both the minister of foreign affairs and the undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His foreign assignments include Turkish missions in Moscow, Athens and the United Nations, as well as NATO, where he was the deputy permanent representative. Previously, he was a faculty member of the NATO Defense College in Rome.