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Temur Iakobashvili (Georgian: თემურ იაკობაშვილი, also transliterated as Temuri Yakobashvili) (born September 3, 1967) is a Georgian political scientist, diplomat and politician serving as State Minister for Reintegration since January 31, 2008.

Iakobashvili was born into a Georgian Jewish family in Tbilisi. He graduated from the Department of Physics at Tbilisi State University in 1984. He further attended Diplomatic Course at the universities of Oxford and Birmingham in the United Kingdom (1998), obtained the Yale University scholarship for the World Leaders’ Program (2002), and took international security courses at the John F. Kennedy School of Government in the United States (2003).

From 1990 to 2001, he worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia where he last served as the Director of the U.S., Canada and Latin America Department. He holds the rank of Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary. Iakobashvili has been active in the non-governmental sector, being a co-founder and member of the managing board of the Foreign Relations Council and the Atlantic Council of Georgia, a member of the board of the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs, and Executive Vice-President of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies. He has authored several publications on national security, conflict management and foreign relations, and was a visiting scholar to the Center for the Silk Road Studies at the Uppsala University, Sweden, in 2006.

On January 31, 2008, he was appointed by the President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili as State Minister for Reintegration, an office which had formerly been known as State Minister for Conflict Issues. He is thus a chief negotiator on the Abkhazia and South Ossetia conflicts.

In August of 2008, Yakobashvili achieved minor fame during the South Ossetia war when he gave an Israeli interviewer an over-optimistic, and erroneous, assessment of the situation. With Georgian troops in full retreat, he revealed the depth of his government's illusion the day after the conflict broke out. Still unaware of what was really happening on the battlefield, Yakobashvili reported that a small group of Georgian soldiers had been able to wipe out an entire Russian military division. "We killed 60 Russian soldiers yesterday alone," he said. "The Russians have lost more than 50 tanks, and we have shot down 11 of their planes. They have sustained enormous damage in terms of manpower."

Currently he is a proponent of a peaceful settlement of the secessionist conflicts and has called for "internationalization" of the currently Russian-dominated peacekeeping format.

Iakobashvili is married to Yana Fremer and has two children. Beyond Georgian and Hebrew, he is fluent in Russian and English.

References

1. ^ Temur Iakobashvili – official biography. The Government of Georgia. Retrieved on March 24, 2008.
2. Pundit Confirms Offer of State Minister Position. Civil Georgia. Retrieved on March 24, 2008.
3. Retrieved on December 11, 2009.
4. New State Minister Speaks on Conflict Resolution Issues. Civil Georgia. Retrieved on March 24, 2008.

• 1967 births
• Living people
• Alumni of the University of Birmingham
• Alumni of the University of Oxford
• Georgian diplomats
• Georgian politicians
• Georgian political scientists
• Georgian Jews
• Jewish politicians
• John F. Kennedy School of Government alumni
• People from Tbilisi
• Tbilisi State University
• Yale University alumni