Burak Akçapar (born May 27, 1967, Istanbul) is a Turkish diplomat, scholar, and author currently serving as Turkey's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva. Previously, he held the position of Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. Akçapar has served as Turkey's Ambassador to Spain from 2021 until 2023 and to India from 2011 until 2017. He is an associate professor of International Relations and the author of three books on topics related to diplomacy and international law.
Early life and education Akçapar earned his bachelor's degree in political science from Boğaziçi University in 1987 and received a Doctor of the Science of Law degree (magna cum laude) from Hamburg University. In 2015, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Rai University in Gujarat, India.
Diplomatic career
Akçapar started working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1988.
TimelinePositionCountry December 1988 – May 1989 Candidate to career officer, Diplomacy Academy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Turkey May 1989 – April 1990 Candidate to career officer, Deputy Directorate General for Arms Control and Disarmament, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Turkey April 1990 – December 1990 Military service, Turkish General Staff. Turkey December 1990 – August 1991 Diplomatic Attaché, Deputy Directorate General for Arms Control and Disarmament, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Turkey August 1991 – September 1993 Third Secretary, Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of the Republic of Türkiye to the State of Qatar. Qatar September 1993 – September 1996 Vice-Consul, Consulate General of the Republic of Türkiye in Hamburg. Germany September 1996 – September 1997 Second Secretary, Deputy Directorate General for Arms Control and Disarmament, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Turkey September 1997 – August 1998 First Secretary, Deputy Directorate General for Arms Control and Disarmament, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Turkey August 1998 – November 2002 International Staff Officer, Defense Planning and Operations Division of NATO. Belgium November 2002 – November 2004 Head of department, Deputy Directorate General for Policy Planning, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Turkey November 2004 – November 2008 First Counsellor, Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of the Republic of Türkiye to the United States. USA November 2008 – September 2009 Head of department, Deputy Directorate General for Policy Planning, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Turkey September 2009 – July 2011 Deputy Director General for South Asia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Turkey July 2011 – January 2017 Turkey Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of India. (Accredited to Sri Lanka (2011–12), Maldives and Nepal). India January 2017 – July 2018 Ambassador, Director General for Policy Planning, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Turkey July 2018 – January 2019 Ambassador, Acting Director General for Conflict Prevention and Crisis Management, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Turkey January 2019 – May 2021 Ambassador, Director General for Foreign Policy, Analysis and Coordination, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Turkey May 2021 - February 2023 Turkey Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Spain.
Non-resident Ambassador to the Principality of Andorra. Spain November 2022 - February 2023 Permanent Representative to UN World Tourism Organization. Spain February 2023 – Present Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. Turkey
He is the 2002 recipient of NATO Secretary General's Award for Excellence for lasting contributions to the North Atlantic Alliance.
During his tenure at NATO, as Facilitator of the Southeast Europe Security Assistance Group, he led the efforts to promote regional cooperation among Balkan countries. Achievements included the Southeast Europe Common Assessment Paper on Regional Security Challenges and Opportunities (SEECAP) adopted by Ministers in Budapest on 29 May 2001.
Research and publications
He was a columnist at Sunday Standard and the New Indian Express.
He has published three books; People's Mission to the Ottoman Empire, Turkey's New European Era, The International Law of Conventional Arms Control in Europe.
His research interests include international law, law of the sea, international security and international affairs. Taught courses on Political Risk Assessment at TOBB ETU and on problems in international security at METU in Ankara. His most recent book "People's Mission to the Ottoman Empire: Dr. Ansari and the Indian Medical Mission, 1912-13" is published by the Oxford University Press in 2014. He has launched the book in 2015 at Oxford University with a lecture published by the university as a podcast. He previously published an extensive study of Turkey's foreign policy and national security culture in "Turkey's New European Era" (2007, Rowman and Littlefield). Previous book: "The International Law of Conventional Arms Control in Europe" (Nomos, 1996).Amazon.de: The International Law of Conventional Arms Control in Europe: A Survey into the Substantive, Formal and Procedural-Institutional Elements of Contractual Conventional Arms Control in Europe: Burak Akcapar: Bücher Also co-authored "The Debate on Democratization in the Broader Middle East and North Africa" (2004, Tesev). Other publications include among others "PfP as an Agent of Continuity and Change in the Euro-Atlantic Region" (in Gustav Schmidt ed. A History of Nato, 2001, Palgrave)A History of Nato and "Turkey's EU Accession" (2006, Yale Journal of International Relations) as well as "The Mutual Existence of Nascent and Senescent World Orders" (2009, Portland State University).
His book Turkey's New European Era: Foreign Policy on the Road to EU Membership received praise: "This is a thought-provoking study by a Turkish diplomat with well-marshaled arguments. Akçapar provides the best and most up-to-date study of the benefits that Turkey offers European Union countries for gaining full membership in the EU. . . . Well written and argued, this book makes clear the growing importance of Turkey as a political player on the global stage, especially in the Middle East. Highly recommended."—Choice
"Turkey's bid for membership in the European Union could be one of the most important geopolitical events of the next few decades, with profound consequences for Europe's identity, the security and politics of Eurasia and the Middle East, and the debate about democracy in Muslim countries. Burak Akçapar, as one of the sharpest and most astute members of a new generation of Turkish diplomats, has a unique ringside seat on this unfolding drama. His book is worth reading for anyone with an interest in Europe's future."—Mark Leonard, Centre for European Reform
"Burak Akcapar's Turkey's New European Era is must-reading for anyone interested in Turkey and Europe. Akcapar's is the fresh and powerful voice of a younger generation of strategic thinkers in a country whose importance is destined to grow in the years ahead. His views on Turkey's quest to join the European Union highlight how much is at stake and how much better we need to understand these critical issues."—Ronald D. Asmus, Director, Transatlantic Center of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
"Why does Turkey insist on EU membership? And why should the EU be interested in making Turkey a member? Skeptics would say that Turkey and the EU should each go its own way. Akçapar, a foreign policy practitioner, asserts that this is neither easy or possible. Turkey, the European Union, and the United States are tied to each other in important ways, as this seasoned diplomat explains with aptitude and clarity. A must-read for anyone who is for or against Turkey's EU membership."—Soner Cagaptay, Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
On Indian Medical Mission to the Ottoman Empire during the Balkan Wars of 1912-13
In his account, explains that concerned Muslims around India mobilized to dispatch three medical teams to treat wounded Ottoman soldiers. Among them, the one organized by Mohammad Ali Jauhar and directed by Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari caught the limelight, thanks to the regular letters sent home by the director of the Mission and published in the weekly Comrade journal. In the body of scholarship on Ottoman pan-Islamism, as a manifestation of pan-Islamist political ideology and Muslim internationalist action and its influence on the 1919 Khilafat Movement in India, the 1912-13 Indian Medical Mission has not been analysed in detail. His book studies the letters by the director of the Mission and the political and ideational context of the period to provide the first full narrative history of the Medical Mission, detailing its simultaneously humanitarian and political purposes and activities in Turkey. The book concludes that the Indian Mission was as much a humanitarian initiative as it was an effort to heal the pride of the Muslim population in India. The book therefore presents their story, the first ever in a book, reconstructing to the extent possible their thoughts, voice, and the era that shaped them. The book also presents a compelling case for the Ottoman Empire - something that has not been done too frequently, where he tries to correct a perceived historic wrong: the portrayal of Turks as despots in Western historiography.
On International law
Overall, his early scholarship on jurisprudence emphasized the New Haven approach to international law founded by Myres McDougal and Harold Lasswell at Yale Law School. The New Haven approach rejects formalist assessments and has been associated with norm scepticism. It has exerted significant influence since World War II. The ICJ President Higgins is known to belong to the New Haven school.
In 1996, he published The International Law of Conventional Arms Control in Europe, which recognized that “international law is under increasing pressure to cope with the complexity and vicissitudes of international life. This strain has only exacerbated in the aftermath of the Cold War, as demands for a new world order intensified calling in a new agenda of reform in international law. In a bid to maintain and indeed improve its character as an obligatory and objectified set of norms, principles and procedures governing all facets of the states of peace and war, international law responds to this challenge basically on two fronts. First, there is the effort to create law more rapidly and effectively. Thus, new types of sources of obligation and methods for creating them make their debut and take their place in the international legal order alongside the more traditional ones. Secondly, new subject-areas concerning international law make a showing in international relations, such as environmental law. This development conforms to the meaning of Article 13 of the UN Charter which requires the initiation of studies and recommendations encouraging the "progressive development of international law." A third path employ: regional cooperation schemes to build regional unified spaces "based on common political and legal principles, norms and values. This points out to a shift of emphasis from grandiose global codification efforts to more promising and less indolent regional arrangements.”