Who is Diplomeds?

Camille Limon is the Coordinator of Diplomeds – The Council for Mediterranean Diplomacy. She is an independent consultant specialized in Euro-Mediterranean cooperation and EU external relations with the Mediterranean, North Africa and the Middle East. She has experience in project management and strategic communications on various Euro-Mediterranean cooperation projects financed by the European Commission. She is a Ph.D. researcher at the University of Geneva specialized in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, in particular the issue of Jerusalem. She worked as a researcher and seminar teacher in EU law and external relations at the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence at the University of Geneva and as an international affairs officer in the European Youth Parliament France. Her areas of expertise include EU external relations, Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, foreign and security policy, the Middle East Peace Process, conflict analysis and peacebuilding.

Amb. (ret.) John O’Rourke worked in the external relations services of the European Commission, where he focused on Russia and the Newly Independent States (NIS), particularly on cooperation regarding energy and nuclear safety issues. He previously was Deputy Head of the Delegation of the European Commission in Warsaw and worked on financial cooperation and accession negotiations with Turkey. Besides, he was responsible for the development of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), notably leading the preparation of the Commission proposal for the Eastern Partnership and subsequently its launch. He then headed the Division Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and Iran and was the Ambassador and the Head of the Delegation of the EU to Algeria. He holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His professional interests are centered on the EU’s relations with the countries of the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe, particularly in the areas of peacebuilding, energy policy, migration, governance and regulatory alignment.

Amb. Dr. Omar Rifai is a Co-Founder of Diplomeds – The Council for Mediterranean Diplomacy, an Advisor to HRH Prince El-Hassan Ibn Talal of Jordan, and the former Director-General of the WANA Institute in Amman. He previously was the Director of the Arab Affairs Unit and the Representative of the Commissioner-General at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Jordan. Prior to that, he was Secretary-General of the Jordanian Foreign Ministry, President of the Jordan Institute of Diplomacy, and the first Executive Director of the West Asia-North Africa (WANA) Forum. He served in the Jordanian Diplomatic Service, was stationed at missions in Cairo, Bern, New York, London and Washington, and headed Jordan’s diplomatic missions in Israel, Italy and Egypt. He also held the positions of Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Director of the Special Bureau at the Foreign Ministry in Amman. He was notably a member of the Jordanian delegation to the Jordan-Israel peace talks in 1994 and Jordan’s Permanent Representative to the Arab League in Cairo. Besides, he was a part-time lecturer in Political Science and International Relations at various universities in Jordan. He holds several Jordanian and foreign decorations and is presently a Member of the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Crime and Justice Institute (UNICRI), the Academic Board of the NATO Defense College, and the WANA Institute in Amman.

Amb. (ret.) Dr. Abderahman Salaheldin is a member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs. He lectures at the Egyptian Foreign Ministry’s diplomatic institute on Arab, Turkish and American affairs, participates in academic and policy-oriented seminars in American, European and Egyptian universities, and writes opinion articles in Arabic and English. Amb. Salaheldin worked for four decades as an Egyptian diplomat. Before his retirement in 2018, he served twice as the Assistant Foreign Minister for Arab and Middle Eastern Affairs, and as the Ambassador to Turkey and to the Czech Republic. He spent 17 years of his diplomatic career in the United States (Washington, New York, and San Francisco). Amb. Salaheldin obtained his Ph.D. in Political Science at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic on the “Egyptian foreign policy and the Arab spring: A Case study of Egyptian policy toward Turkey and Palestine”. Besides, he published his memoirs in Arabic about his time as the Ambassador to Turkey (2010-2013) and also wrote a chapter on Egyptian-Saudi-Turkish relations in the book “Aspiring Powers, Regional Rivals: Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the New Middle East” published in 2019 by the Middle East Institute in Washington D.C.

Prof. Ahmet Sözen is a Professor of Political Science and International Relations, at the Eastern Mediterranean University in Northern Cyprus. He is the founding Director of Cyprus Policy Center. During his PhD dissertation fieldwork – which was on the Cyprus inter-communal peace negotiations, he was granted one of the fifty 1997 Paul Harris Ambassadorial Peace Scholarships on International Conflict Resolution given on a world-wide competition by the International Rotary Foundation. Besides his university work, he was the founding Turkish Cypriot Co-Director of the UNDP funded program Cyprus 2015 which operated first under Interpeace and later became the first inter-communal think-tank called SeeD – Center for Sustainable Peace and Democratic Development. He also served as the Research Director of SeeD. He is also active on the policy and advocacy fronts. His experience over the last twenty years as a peace activist includes peacebuilding and democratization processes, participation in the official Turkish Cypriot negotiation team in the UN-led official peace negotiations in Cyprus, active involvement in second-track peace and democratization initiatives, trainings in conflict resolution, mediation and peacebuilding and policy recommendations design. He has published extensively on the Cyprus conflict, peace processes and Turkish foreign policy, and has given dozens of invited speeches on conflict resolution (including two TED talks), the Cyprus conflict and Turkish foreign policy in various countries. He frequently appears on both local and Turkish media, as well as international media, such as Al-Jazeera, Euronews and BBC, where he comments on world events.

Valeria Talbot is a Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Middle East and North Africa Centre at the Italian Institute of International Political Studies (ISPI). She teaches a course in the Master’s program in Middle Eastern Studies at Alta Scuola di Economia e Relazioni Internazionali (ASERI) of the Catholic University of Milan. Previously, she was Adjunct Professor of History and Institutions of the Middle East at IULM University in Milan and the ISPI scientific coordinator for the EU-funded Arab Transformations Project (2012-2016). She actively contributes to research projects, papers, articles and edited books. Ms. Talbot was the scientific coordinator of several editorial projects, such as the World Geopolitical Atlas published by the Italian Encyclopaedia Institute Treccani in 2020, the ISPI MED Reports (2016-2020) and the ISPI journal Quaderni di Relazioni Internazionali (2007-2012). Her main research interests are Euro-Mediterranean relations, geopolitics of the Middle East, Turkey’s domestic and foreign policy, and the Gulf monarchies. She is a regular speaker and commentator on Turkey and Middle Eastern issues in the Italian and international media.

Amb. Hesham Youssef is a Co-Founder of Diplomeds – The Council for Mediterranean Diplomacy, a Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, and a former career diplomat with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Egypt. He was posted to the Egyptian Embassy in Canada and the Egyptian Mission in Geneva where he focused on economic and trade issues in the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. He was a member of the Cabinet of the Egyptian Minister for Foreign Affairs and previously taught at Cairo University, the American University in Cairo, and Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. He also served as a senior official in the Arab League, as Official Spokesman, Chief of Staff to Secretary General Amr Moussa, and Senior Advisor to Secretary General Dr. Nabil Elaraby on issues pertaining to crisis management and the reform of the Arab League. Besides, he served as assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian, Cultural and Social Affairs of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). His areas of expertise include conflict resolution in the Middle East and in particular the Arab-Israeli conflict, reconciliation in Iraq and the situation in Sudan, reform in the Arab world, and the fragility and humanitarian situation in the Islamic world, in particular in Somalia, the Palestinian Territories, Chad, Niger and Myanmar.

Dr. Yahia H. Zoubir is a Professor of International Studies and International Management, and the Director of Research in Geopolitics at KEDGE Business School, France. He has taught at multiple universities in the United States, China, Europe, India, Indonesia, South Korea, and the Middle East and North Africa. He is the author/editor of several books, notably North African Politics: Change and Continuity, co-edited with Gregory White, and The Politics of Algeria: Domestic Issues and International Relations. He is the author of dozens of articles in leading academic journals, such as the Journal of Contemporary China, Foreign Affairs, Third World Quarterly, Mediterranean Politics, International Affairs, Africa Spectrum, Journal of North African Studies, Democratization, Middle East Journal, Arab Studies Quarterly, Africa Today, and Middle East Policy. He is currently preparing the publication of an edited, 32-chapter volume, titled, The Routledge Companion to China and the Middle East and North Africa. His other publications include analytical articles in international newspapers, research articles the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies and the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion & Politics, and on think tanks’ websites.