Speaker Biographies
September 27, 2005
Zeyno Baran is director of International Security and Energy Programs at the Nixon Center. Prior to joining the Nixon Center in January 2003, Ms. Baran was Director of the Caucasus Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Ms. Baran has also worked on Caspian oil and gas pipeline projects since 1996, and frequently travels to the region. Baran has appeared on a number of Caucasus and Turkish television stations, as well as CNN’s NewsNight, and is widely quoted in the print media.
Isa Gambar has served as leader of the Musavat Party, Azerbaijan’s oldest political party, since 1992. In 2003, Mr. Gambar was elected as the leader of the Azerbaijani Opposition, a coalition formed between the fourteen national parties that favor democratic rule and oppose the current Aliyev government. Previously, he served in numerous senior roles in Azerbaijani government. Elected to the National Assembly of Azerbaijan in 1990, Mr. Gambar became president of the Commission for International Relations in 1991. The following year he was elected speaker of the Parliament, and acted as interim president until the official election. Following the June 1993 coup, in which Hedar Aliyev overthrew the Elcibey government, Mr. Gambar resigned his position as speaker of the Parliament to protect the stability of Azerbaijan. He was imprisoned by the ruling party and released one month later, only after Western countries, led by the United States, intervened.
Reuel Marc Gerecht is a resident fellow at AEI. An expert in Middle East affairs, he has focused since 9/11 on Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan, as well as on terrorism and intelligence. He is the author of Know Thine Enemy: A Spy's Journey into Revolutionary Iran (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1997) and The Islamic Paradox: Shiite Clerics, Sunni Fundamentalists, and the Coming of Arab Democracy (AEI Press, 2004). He is a contributing editor for The Weekly Standard and a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, as well as a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and other publications. Mr. Gerecht formerly held positions as the director of the Middle East Initiative for the Project for the New American Century and as a Middle Eastern specialist in the Central Intelligence Agency.
S. Frederick Starr is a research professor at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and the chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute. Previously, he was president of the Aspen Institute and of Oberlin College, and an associate professor of history at Princeton University. Mr. Starr was also a founding director of the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is a regular participant in the World Economic Forum and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Bruce Stokes is the international economics columnist for the National Journal, a Washington-based public policy magazine. He is also a journalism fellow at the German Marshall Fund and a fellow with the Pew Research Center. From 1996 to 2002, he was a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Stokes is the coauthor of the book Democratizing U.S. Trade Policy (Council on Foreign Relations, 2001). He also authored the Council book A New Beginning: Recasting The U.S.-Japan Economic Relationship (2000). Mr. Stokes is a regular commentator on National Public Radio and the U.S. rapporteur for the Transatlantic Policy Network.
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