Alper Coşkun is a senior fellow within the Europe Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. His research focuses on Turkish foreign policy, especially in relation to the United States and Europe. 

He is a retired career diplomat of thirty-two years with extensive experience in both bilateral and multilateral settings. He was the director general for international security affairs at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2016-2019), covering NATO, transatlantic relations, as well as Euro-Atlantic security/defense and arms control/disarmament matters. Before that, he was ambassador to Baku, Azerbaijan (2012-2016), where he oversaw one of Türkiye’s most active and largest diplomatic missions with a wide multiagency composition. 

His foreign assignments include Turkish missions in Moscow, Athens, and the United Nations, as well as NATO, where he was the deputy permanent representative.