Ambassador Hüsein Diriöz
Former Assistant Secretary General of NATO for Defense and Policy Planning
Ambassador Hüseyin Diriöz is NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Defence Policy and Planning. He is the Secretary General’s primary advisor on defence policy and planning issues and is a member of the Secretary General’s senior management team. Ambassador Diriöz is a career diplomat who served his country for 30 years before he joined the NATO International Staff as Assistant Secretary General for Defence Policy and Planning on 18 October 2010. He first joined the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1978 and served in Kabul and Strasbourg before attending the NATO Defence College in Rome in 1987/88. He then returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a further year before joining the Turkish Delegation to NATO for four years. In 1993, Ambassador Diriöz joined the NATO International Staff as Head of the Defence Policy Section and in 1996 he returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ankara. From 1998 to 2000 he was Minister-Counsellor in the Turkish Embassy, Washington DC, and on his return, he became the Spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 2004 to 2008 he was Turkey’s Ambassador to Jordan after which he returned to the Ministry in Ankara for a year before becoming the Chief Foreign Policy Advisor to the President of Turkey, Abdullah Gül. Ambassador Diriöz is a graduate of Ankara University, where he studied Political Sciences, and the University of Virginia, where he gained his MA. Ambassador Diriöz is married and has two adult children.