H.E. Mr. Fikrat Akhundov is the newly appointed Ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the Kingdom of the Netherlands. He began his term on December 26th, 2019.
Mr. Akhundov was born in the Azerbaijani capital city of Baku. This is where he attended the Azerbaijan State University of Languages under the Faculty of German and English languages. After pursuing higher education for seven years, he eventually obtained a Master’s degree in 1990.
After completing his education, Mr. Akhundov did not begin a career in foreign service straight away. He first served in the military from 1985 to 1987 as a soldier in the Border Troops. Having fulfilled his mandatory military service, he then worked in the private sector from 1990 to 1999 at the Azerbaijan Deposit Bank. During this time, he cooperated with Wirtgen and Coke consulting for the Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia (TRACECA) project.
Afterward, Mr. Akhundov finally started his career as a diplomat in 1999. He first served as Second Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and participated in the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission in the same year. From late 1999, he served in the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Austria and the Permanent Representation of Azerbaijan to international organizations in Vienna. Here, he held the positions of Second, then First Secretary until 2005.
After returning to his country, Mr. Akhundov was appointed Head of the Western Europe Department in the MFA. He maintained this role for four years until 2009 when he began another term abroad at the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Germany. Here, he served as First Secretary until 2016. Having completed his term, he briefly returned to Baku for one year and was assigned Deputy Head of Department of the MFA’s Personnel Department. It was not long after that he embarked on another term outside of the country at the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Bulgaria, serving as First Secretary and Counselor for two years.
When Mr. Akhundov returned home in early 2019, he took on the role of Advisor in the Eastern European Office of the MFA until he came to the Netherlands.
Aside from German and English, Mr. Akhundov also speaks Russian.
The diplomat community in The Hague sends a warm welcome to Ambassador Akhundov and wishes him all the best in his new term.
