Ambassador (Retired) Riaz Mohammad Khan joined ISSI on March 01, 2014 as one of two Fellows part of the ISS-Hanns Seidel Foundation Distinguished Fellowship program. The joint Fellowship invites distinguished scholars in academia, armed forces, foreign and civil services to spend three months in residence at ISSI where they will conduct independent, policy-oriented research and writing.
Ambassador Khan spent nearly 40 years in Pakistan’s Foreign Service. He served the Pakistan’s Mission to the United Nations in New York for seven years (1979-86) and was also Director General of Afghanistan and Soviet Affairs at the Foreign Office during which time he took sabbatical to join Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy as Diplomat-in-Residence. He has served as Ambassador to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan (1992-95); Ambassador to Belgium, Luxemburg and the European Union (1995-98);and Additional Secretary in charge of international organizations and arms control issues for Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1998-2002) during which time he was also the spokesperson of the Foreign Office (2000-01). Ambassador Khan also served as Pakistan’s Ambassador to China (2002-05) before accepting the post of Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary (2005-08). Following his retirement from the Foreign Service, Ambassador Riaz Mohammad Khan spent a year as the Pakistan Scholar (2008-09) at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC.
While at ISSI, Ambassador Khan will be working on a research paper on ‘Post-2014 Afghanistan.’ As part of the Fellowship, the research paper will be published in the Institute’s flagship quarterly journal, Strategic Studies.
