Dr. Peter Bartu, a Visiting Fellow at  the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy, recently shared his insights on political transitions in the Middle-East with senior Australian government officials, APCD Master Students, and the broader ANU community in a series of events hosted by the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy in May 2012.

For the past 12 months Dr. Bartu served as the first Australian member of the United Nations Standby Team of Mediation Experts. The UN Standby Team provides rapid mediation support expertise to efforts to mediate conflict around the world. During his one-year term on the Standby Team, Dr. Bartu was deployed to support mediation activities in Iraq, Libya, Malawi, Somalia and Syria. In Libya he spent several months in Benghazi and Tripoli assisting the National Transitional Council and numerous other stakeholders, including the Muslim Brotherhood, develop a transitional framework for the return in Libya of constitutional government.  In Iraq he advised the UN and Iraqi national leaders on a framework response to the latest political crisis within the Maliki government. 

Dr. Bartu has a wealth of experience in UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding. In 2008-2009 he led a team of fifteen international and Iraqi researchers, academics and diplomats, on behalf of the UN, in producing a seminal report on the future status of Kirkuk and the disputed internal boundaries between the Arabs and the Kurds. From 2001-2003 he was a political advisor to the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. He has also worked with the UN in East Timor for the conduct of the Popular Consultation in 1999 and in Cambodia during 1991-1993 with the UN Transitional Authority