Svante Cornell
Svante E. Cornell (born 1975) is a Swedish scholar specializing on politics and security issues in Eurasia, especially the South Caucasus, Turkey, and Central Asia. He is a director and co-founder of the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP), and Research Director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program (CACI), and joined the American Foreign Policy Council as a Senior Fellow for Eurasia in January 2017. Cornell has often been criticized for promoting "a stridently pro-Azerbaijani position" and for his personal ties with the Aliyev family in Azerbaijan. The IDSP is sponsored by the European Azerbaijan Society, which engages in caviar diplomacy on behalf of Azerbaijan, and CACI is owned by the Azerbaijani governmental think tank Center for Strategic Studies under the President of Azerbaijan (SAM), whose official purpose is to "create and maintain a positive image of the Republic of Azerbaijan abroad". Education Cornell studied at the Department of the International Relations, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. He earned a Ph.D. in Peace and Conflict Studies from Uppsala University in Uppsala, Sweden. Career In 2000, Cornell participated in an Azerbaijani state funded project for an oil pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey, in which