Edward Djerejian

Ambassador Edward P. Djerejian began his lifelong career in Foreign Service in the Kennedy administration as the assistant to the Under Secretary of State George W. Ball, and then as executive assistant to Under Secretary of State Joseph Sisco when Henry Kissinger was Secretary of State. Among his celebrated list of credentials are serving as the Assistant Secretary of State for Near East affairs in both the Bush 41 and Clinton administrations, helping to bring the Madrid Conference framework...See more

Ambassador Edward P. Djerejian began his lifelong career in Foreign Service in the Kennedy administration as the assistant to the Under Secretary of State George W. Ball, and then as executive assistant to Under Secretary of State Joseph Sisco when Henry Kissinger was Secretary of State. Among his celebrated list of credentials are serving as the Assistant Secretary of State for Near East affairs in both the Bush 41 and Clinton administrations, helping to bring the Madrid Conference framework forward from a Republican to Democratic administration; participating in the 1985 Geneva Summit meeting between President Bush and Syrian President Asas, the White House signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993; and serving in Moscow (1979-1981) as political couselor in charge of the political section of the US Embassy during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Djerejian expanded his State Department service and went on to be a White House special assistant to president Reagan and the deputy press secretary for foreign affairs. After retiring from the Foreign Service in 1994, he became the founding director of the James Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, where he is continuously involved in both foreign and domestic policy for bothe the Republican and Democratic administrations. He also chairs a congressionally mandated advisory group on United States public diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim worlds as well as serving as chairman of the Baker Institute's Conflict Resolution Program on Israeli-Palestinian and Syrian issues. See less