Experts & Staff

Guney Yildiz

ECFR Alumni · Visiting Fellow

Areas of expertise

Syria, Turkey and the Kurds in the region

Languages

English, Turkish, Kurdish, conversational Arabic (Syrian dialect)

Biography

Guney Yildiz is a visiting fellow for ECFR's Middle East and North Africa Programme, where he is focusing on the post-Islamic State stabilisation of Syria, with specific emphasis on the areas controlled by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). He is pursuing a PhD on non-state actors in the Middle East at the University of Cambridge and holds a Master's degree from the London School of Economics. He has advised the Foreign Affairs Select Committee of the UK Parliament as a Special Adviser on Turkey, works as a political and security consultant and carries out investigative journalism mainly on Turkey, the Kurds and ISIS.

He has given talks at Chatham House, RUSI, ECFR, Oxford University, the UK Parliament and LSE. He has also been consulted by government institutions and the diplomatic community in London. He regularly provides analysis for TV, radio and online outlets, including reacting to breaking news stories from the region. As a journalist with the BBC for ten years, he broke numerous top UK and international stories that have been picked up by other domestic and international broadcasters.

Publications:

The Changing Dynamics of Kurdish Politics in the Middle East , in Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research, July, 2017
Turkish Foreign Policy: Ankara Seeks to Take Advantage of Regional Rivalries, in Turkish Foreign Policy, December 2016
 

Can the Kurds lead in Syria?

The urgent issue for the Kurds is to develop a governance model that will work in Kurdish majority as well as Arab majority areas

In the media