Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury

Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury was a Bangladeshi career diplomat and former government minister. He is principal research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) in the National University of Singapore.As a senior member of the Bangladesh Foreign Service, he served as Bangladesh's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York (2001-2007) and Geneva (1996-2001). He was also Bangladesh's ambassador to Qatar (1994-1996) and was accredited to Chile, Peru and the Vatican.

He was also an international civil servant, having served as special advisor to the Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva (2000). Chowdhury stood First Class First in BA Honours in political science at Dhaka University and obtained an MA and PhD in international relations from the Australian National University, Canberra. He was born on  October 25, 1946 in Dhaka District, Bangladesh .