Ömer Özkizilcik is a nonresident fellow for the Syria Project in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. He is Ankara-based analyst of Turkish foreign policy, counterterrorism, and military affairs. A leading expert on the Syrian civil war, Özkizilcik has written extensively on the non-state armed groups and the state actors involved in the conflict.

From 2017 to 2019, Özkizilcik worked as a research assistant at the Middle East Foundation in Ankara. From 2019 to 2021, he was an analyst at the security studies of the SETA Foundation in Ankara and had a special focus on Syria-related military and security developments, including non-state armed groups and counterterrorism efforts. Since 2022, Özkizilcik has been the Turkish research director on Syria at Omran Center for Strategic Studies. Furthermore, since 2016, Özkizilcik has been the editor-in-chief of Suriye Gündemi, a Turkish online news and expert portal about the Syrian civil war.

His articles and analysis have been published by Al Jazeera Center for Studies, Al-Sharq Strategic Research, Carnegie for Endowment of International Peace, Geneva Centre for Security Policy, Hudson Institute, Middle East Eye, Middle East Institute, Royal United Services Institute, Russian International Affairs Council, The Daily Star, The Jerusalem Post, TRT World, and many others.

Özkizilcik holds a bachelors in Social Sciences from the Humboldt University of Berlin and a masters degree in International Relations from the TOBB University of Economics and Technology.