Contact:
Tel. +1-202-338-9448;
+1-304-876-2583
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Expertise:
- Central and South Asia
- Peacekeeping
- Narcotics Control
- United Nations

R. Grant Smith
Forum Director

Ambassador (Ret.) R. Grant Smith is Forum Director (Pro Tem) of the W.P. Carey Forum at the Central Asia Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program. Ambassador Smith represented the United States in Tajikistan from 1995-98, during the negotiation and implementation of the peace accords ending the civil war there. Upon his return from Tajikistan , he became Diplomat in Residence at the Peacekeeping Institute at the U.S. Army War College, where he wrote articles and participated in simulations. In the fall of 1999 and 2000, he served in the U.S. Mission to the United Nations as Senior Area Adviser for South Asia and the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union. He retired at the end of 2000 and became a Senior Fellow at the Central Asia Caucasus-Institute but returned to active duty with the Department of State briefly in 2003 as Senior Adviser in the Bureau of European Affairs and then as Acting Political Adviser to the Commander of Coalition Forces in Afghanistan.

During his 38-year career in the Department of State, Ambassador Smith spent many years in South Asia and working on South Asia in Washington. He served in Pakistan, Nepal and India, including as Deputy Chief of Mission in New Delhi from 1988-91. He was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement from 1991 to 1994. Earlier in his career, he served in the Central African Republic and Belize and, in Washington , worked on North African Affairs and United Nations Political Affairs.

Ambassador Smith graduated from Princeton University and received a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University . He served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve 1962-67. He was Department of State Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York 1975-76. He participated in the UN University for Peace conferences in Dushanbe in 2001 and 2001 on Lessons Learned from the Tajikistan Peace Process. He speaks Tajik, French and Hindi.

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Publications__________

R. Grant Smith, "Tajikistan , the Rocky Road to Peace", Central Asian Survey, 1999.