Safeen Muhsin Dizayee serves as the top diplomat of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s 9th Cabinet after being named as the Head of Department of Foreign Relations on July 2019.
From his previous experiences, Mr Dizayee was the Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister, as well as the Spokesperson and the Head of Department of Media and Information (DMI) of the Kurdistan Regional Government at the 7th and 8th Cabinets. Prior to that, he served as the Minister of Education of the KRG’s 6th Cabinet from 2009 to 2012.
Mr Dizayee is a member of the Leadership Council of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). In 1999, he was elected to the Central Committee of the KDP and headed the KDP’s International Relations Office from 2004 to 2009.
In 1992, Mr Dizayee was officially appointed as the KDP’s representative in Turkey. After the toppling of the Ba’ath regime in Iraq in 2003, he became the second deputy to the KDP’s leader, Masoud Barzani, as a member of the Iraqi Governing Council under the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), in Baghdad.
Mr Dizayee was born in Erbil in 1963 to a prominent family active in the Kurdistan Liberation Movement. In 1974, his family had to leave Iraq like many other revolutionary families due to the Kurdish Uprising and political reasons, and lived in the United Kingdom from 1977 to 1992. He graduated in interior design from Berkshire College of Art and Design.
From 1980 to 1989, Mr Dizayee was an active member of the Kurdistan Students Society in Europe (KSSE) and later elected as a Secretariat member and the Head of the UK Branch of the KSSE.
He speaks Kurdish, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and English languages.
The Head of Department of Foreign Relations officially represents the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in regional and international meetings, and congresses, and works to strengthen the Kurdistan Region’s political, economic, and cultural ties with counterparts, and officials from other countries, institutions, and international organizations.
Former Minister and Head of Department of Foreign Relations (DFR) Kurdistan Regional