BIO/3695/Rev.2*
GA/SPD/311/Rev.2*
30 September 2005

Biographical Note

Yashar Aliyev of Azerbaijan Fourth Committee Chairman

NEW YORK, 13 September (UN Headquarters) -- Yashar Teymur oglu Aliyev, Azerbaijan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, was elected Chairman of the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) on 13 June.

Having served as his country's Permanent Representative since January 2002, Mr. Aliyev was also Vice-President of the fifty-ninth 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.  He began his diplomatic career at the United Nations in New York 13 years ago, serving as Counsellor on Political Affairs at the Permanent Mission of Azerbaijan.  During that time, he served two one-year terms as Chargé d'affaires, in 1993 and in 2001, respectively. He was also his country's delegate to the First and Fourth Committees at the forty-seventh through fifty-sixth sessions of the United Nations General Assembly.

Mr. 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.

Mr. Aliyev took up Oriental studies at Azerbaijan State University in 1972, receiving the school's highest degree in 1977.  He pursued post-graduate work at Russia's Academy of Sciences in Moscow at the Oriental Studies Institute from 1980 to 1982.  In the early 1990s, he also studied for a year at the Diplomatic Academy of Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Fluent in English, Arabic, Russian and Turkish, Mr. Aliyev was born in August 1955.  He is married and has two children.

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* Revised to reflect additional information.