Ambassador Ian Biggs is the Australian ambassador to Iran. Previously, he was acting first assistant secretary of the International Security Division of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. A senior career officer with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, he has served as secretary of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament and as special assistant to the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He previously served as ambassador to Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia; Saudi Arabia; Austria; Syria; and Egypt.
Sweden
Prime Min. Carl Bildt
Diplomat
Prime Min. Carl Bildt
Diplomat
Sweden
After serving as prime minister of Sweden from 1991 to 1994, Carl Bildt served as minister of foreign affairs from 2006 to 2014. He has a long history of service as a mediator, having served as the U.N. secretary-general’s special envoy for the Balkans, as the high representative of the international community in Bosnia and Herzegovina for reconstruction and the peace implementation process, as the European Union’s special representative for Former Yugoslavia and as co-chair of the Dayton Peace Talks on Former Yugoslavia. Bildt is currently co-chair of the European Council of Foreign Relations and a member of the Global Leadership Foundation, which works to support democratic leadership and resolve conflict through mediation.
United States
Amb. Robert Blackwill
Diplomat
Amb. Robert Blackwill
Diplomat
United States
Ambassador Robert Blackwill is a former U.S. diplomat known for his ability to stimulate progress in negotiation. Currently, he is the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as the U.S. ambassador to India (2001-2003) and as ambassador for conventional arms negotiations with the Warsaw Pact. Before reentering government in 2001, Blackwill was the Belfer Lecturer in International Security at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government for 14 years.
United States
Ambassador Lincoln Bloomfield, Jr.
Diplomat
Ambassador Lincoln Bloomfield, Jr.
Diplomat
United States
Ambassador Lincoln Bloomfield, Jr. is a board member and Chairman Emeritus at the Stimson Center, a nonprofit institution focused on enhancing international security and reducing global risks in the form of transnational threats and weapons of mass destruction. Bloomfield served as the Department of State’s special envoy for the Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) Threat Reduction and as assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs from 2001 to 2005. He has held numerous policy positions at the Department of Defense, including principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs and deputy assistant to the vice president for national security affairs. Bloomfield also currently serves as a senior advisor at Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Algeria
Amb. Lakhdar Brahimi
Diplomat
Amb. Lakhdar Brahimi
Diplomat
Algeria
Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi is the former special envoy to Syria for the United Nations and Arab League. Following Algeria’s independence, he served his country as an ambassador, first to Egypt and then to the United Kingdom. As an Arab League special envoy, Brahimi brokered the Taif Agreement of 1989, which ended the civil war in Lebanon. After retiring from his position as foreign minister of Algeria in 1993, he went on to serve the United Nations, focusing on addressing conflict and post-conflict situations and working to improve U.N. peacekeeping. After the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, Brahimi led the U.N. mission to Afghanistan, and in 2004 traveled to Iraq as a special envoy of the secretary-general to help form an interim government. He is a member of The Elders, an eminent group of world leaders working to address difficult global challenges.
United States
Amb. Richard Burt
Diplomat
Amb. Richard Burt
Diplomat
United States
Ambassador Richard Burt is the U.S. chair of Global Zero. He is an accomplished U.S. diplomat with special expertise in the area of nuclear weapons. Burt successfully concluded a nuclear arms treaty as the U.S. chief negotiator in the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks with the Soviet Union in 1991. Previously, he was U.S. ambassador to Germany.
From 1977 to 1980, Burt worked in Washington as a national security correspondent for The New York Times. He earned his bachelor’s degree in government from Cornell University in 1969, and his master’s degree in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in 1971.
Burt currently serves as managing director at McLarty Associates, which provides consulting for corporations and financial institutions worldwide on strategic planning, government issues, market access, mergers and acquisitions and political and economic risk.
Ambassador Richard Butler was Australia’s first ambassador for disarmament and subsequently convened the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. He was also ambassador to the United Nations, where he tabled the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. From 1997 to 1999, he was the executive chairman of the United Nations Special Commission to Disarm Iraq (UNSCOM). He also served as the global diplomat in residence at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University and a distinguished scholar of international peace and security at the Penn State University School of International Affairs.
Turkey
Min. Hikmet Çetin
Diplomat
Min. Hikmet Çetin
Diplomat
Turkey
Former Foreign Minister Hikmet Çetin’s political career began after he was elected to the Turkish Parliament in 1977 as a member of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), and was appointed deputy prime minister in 1978. In 1997, he was re-elected to Parliament from the Social Democratic People’s Party (SHP). Çetin worked at various executive levels within SHP, including the post of the secretary-general. In 1991, he was re-elected to Parliament and then served as minister of foreign affairs in the two coalition Governments between 1991 and 1994. He was once again appointed as minister of state and deputy prime minister in 1995. In the 1995 general elections, Çetin retook his seat and was elected as the Speaker of the Turkish Grand National Assembly in October 1997. In 2003, he was appointed NATO senior civilian representative for Afghanistan, where he served until 2006. In 2013, Çetin became a member of the Global Leadership Foundation, which works for human rights and promotes good governance and democratic leadership.
