Speaker

Irakli Alasania is a Georgian politician. He served as Minister of Defence of Georgia and Deputy Prime Minister in 2012-2014. Under his leadership as a Defence Minister of Georgia, the Georgian Armed Forces were recognised as one of the most interoperable forces with NATO and participated in EU-led operation in Central African Republic for the first time. At the NATO Wales Summit in 2014, Georgia achieved remarkable success and a step forward in NATO membership process by receiving a NATO-Georgia Substantial Package. Irakli Alasania Prior to 2012, as the Permanent Representative of Georgia to the UN, Ambassador Alasania was Georgia’s key negotiator there. In that capacity, he achieved remarkable success by putting conflicts in Georgia on to the agenda of the United Nations General Assembly, followed by adoption of first UN Resolution N 62/249, recognizing the right of all refugees and internally displaced persons and their descendants, regardless of ethnicity, to return to Abkhazia, Georgia. Before his assignment at the UN, Irakli was Georgian President’s Special Envoy for the Georgian-Abkhaz Peace Talks, which he successfully re-initiated in 2005. Alasania has effectively served in various other governmental positions as well. In 2004, he was appointed as the first Deputy Minister of Defence and Deputy Secretary of the National Security Council, and later named to head the Abkhazian Government-in-Exile. Prior to that, Alasania served at the Ministry of State Security, rising in the rank of the First Deputy Minister, where his prime responsibility was to plan, coordinate and implement anti-terror operations from 2002-2003. In that role, he led the successful effort to clear the Pankisi Gorge, Georgia of foreign extremist militants. Irakli holds B.A. in International Law from Tbilisi State University (1990-1995) and is Graduate of Georgian Academy of Security (1994-1996);he completed Army Intelligence officer course at the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and School, Fort Huachuca, USA (1997);Irakli Alasania went through Stanford Executive Program at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, USA (2015);He is married to Natia Panjikidze. They have two children and one grandchild.