Spanish Diplomat Javier Colomina Píriz has taken office as the new NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs and Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia. Colomina will also hold the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary-General for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
Before that, James Appathurai held the post. He replaced the late Robert F. Simmons – NATO’s first Special Representative - in December 2010. Appathurai previously served as NATO’s Spokesperson from 2004 to 2010. Prior to that, he served as Deputy Head and Senior Planning Officer in the Policy Planning and Speechwriting Section of NATO’s Political Affairs Division from 1998 to 2004.
The NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative is responsible for carrying forward the Alliance’s policy in the two strategically important regions of the Caucasus and Central Asia.
He provides advice to the Secretary-General on how best to achieve NATO’s goals in the two regions, and how best to address the security concerns of NATO’s partners. He is responsible for the overall coordination of NATO’s partnership policy in the two regions and works closely with regional leaders to enhance their cooperation with the Alliance. In the Caucasus, NATO works with Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia which are effectively the South Caucasus; and in Central Asia: Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
The Special Representative also provides high-level support for the work of the NATO Liaison Officer for the South Caucasus in Tbilisi, Georgia, and for Central Asia based in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. He works closely with the NATO Senior Civilian Representative in Afghanistan in order to ensure that NATO’s policy in Central Asia fully supports NATO’s ongoing mission in Afghanistan.
He liaises with senior officials from partner governments in the two regions and advises them on their overall process of reform and how best to use NATO partnership tools to implement those reforms. He also liaises with representatives of the international community and other international organizations engaged in the two regions in order to ensure the coordination of assistance programs.
The Special Representative also promotes understanding about NATO and security issues more generally through engaging with the media and civil society in the two regions.
The position of Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia was created on an ad hoc basis following the decision taken by NATO Allies at the Istanbul Summit in June 2004 to place a special focus on the strategically important regions of the Caucasus and Central Asia.
A key element of this special focus was enhanced liaison arrangements, including the appointment of the Special Representative and two NATO Liaison Officers, one for each region. (The post of NATO Liaison Officer for Central Asia was later canceled in 2017, for budgetary reasons. However, NATO continues to maintain and seek to enhance its political dialogue and practical relations with its five Central Asian partners – practical liaison is now being conducted through NATO Headquarters and the NATO military structures.)
