The Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination will hold a Crisis Diplomacy lunch seminar on Thursday, April 6, 2017, at 12:00 p.m. in 012 Bendheim Hall. Banafsheh Keynoush, a Visiting Scholar with the Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies at Princeton University, will discuss, "Iran's Challenge and Opportunity for Turkey and the Gulf Arab States." The event is co-sponsored by the Mossavar-Rahmani Center. To attend, RSVP to Angella Matheney.

The forging partnership between Turkey and the Arab States of the Persian Gulf has aimed in part to thwart efforts by Iran to expand its regional influence. Unable to forge a steady alliance with Ankara, Tehran uses it as buffer against the hostile currents it faces from the the Gulf Arab states. This grants Turkey a central role to manage regional conflicts between Iran and the Gulf Arabs. It also presents it with the wider Iranian challenge that aims to build a wedge between Ankara and the Gulf Arabs. How this dynamic plays out can determine the outcome of the regional conflicts these players face.

Banafsheh Keynoush is a foreign affairs expert and Visiting Scholar with the Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies at Princeton University. As a geopolitical and communications consultant, Banafsheh has advised senior management and policy makers in the US private sector from 2009-2017, shared her expertise with policy centers in the Middle East from 2012 to 2015, and with the White House from 2010 to 2013. She also worked as a commentator and interpreter with major news outlets including with NPR, CNN, NBC, Fox, and Public Television, and with The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, and The Seattle Tribune. For over two decades, Banafsheh worked as a freelance simultaneous English-Persian interpreter, including with the Hague based US-Iran Claims Tribunal, the United Nations, in dual track diplomatic meetings, international conferences, and with four of Iran's presidents and a Nobel Peace Laureate, and as an accredited interpreter with the European Commission. Banafsheh received her Ph.D. from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, was a Visiting Fellow at The King Faisal Center for Islamic Studies and Research in Saudi Arabia, and a visiting researcher at the Institute for Political and International Studies in Iran. A university assistant and adjunct professor, her most recent book is Saudi Arabia and Iran: Friends or Foes? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016; Arabic - Dar AlSaqi, 2016; scheduled for release in Persian - Zarir, 2017).