Vafa Guluzade is an Azerbaijani diplomat, political scientist and specialist in conflict resolution. He graduated from Azerbaijan University in 1963 and received his doctorate from the Oriental Studies Institute of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow in 1967. He began his diplomatic career in 1969 as Attaché to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow and later served as Second Secretary of the Soviet Embassy in Cairo and as Consular in Algeria. He speaks fluent Azeri, English, Arabic and Russian and has interpreted for Brezhnev, Kosygin, Gromyko and others. Between 1990-1999, he served as foreign policy advisor to the President of Azerbaijan and as such was deeply involved with the negotiations for the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.