Javanshir Mehdikhan Vаkilov (Azerbaijani: Cavanşir Mehdixan oğlu Vəkilov) (February 7, 1951 – August 23, 2013) was an Azerbaijani diplomat, candidate of historical science since 1988, public and political figure, writer and pedagogue. Life Vakilov was born on February 7, 1951, in Baku. He graduated from secondary school number 190 in 1967. He studied the philology of Iran in the faculty of East Studies at the Azerbaijan State University (present: Baku State University) from 1967 to 1972. After graduation he worked as an interpreter in Afghanistan from 1972 to 1975 and in Iran in 1978, and witnessed anti-monarchist revolutions in both countries. He went from head laboratory assistant to the scientific worker during last months of 1975 at the Manuscript Fond of Azerbaijan Academy of Science and, from 1976 to 1992, at the East Studies Institute of Azerbaijan Academy of Science, and defended his thesis on the topic of “Participation of Azerbaijan Republic in the Cultural Relations between USSR and Iran (1941-1946 years)” in 1988. Activities abroad and in motherland After the independence of Azerbaijan, he changed his profession to the field of diplomacy in March 1992 and became Secretary First and Secretary Second at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and worked as a Secretary Second at the embassy of Azerbaijan in Tehran from May 1, 1995, to November 5, 1998. He took part in Diplomatic Courses held in Ankara (1993), Tehran (1994, as a head of representation) and in Cairo (2002, as a head of representation). He participated in the talks of President of Azerbaijan Republic, Heydar Aliyev with the delegations of Iran as an interpreter from Persian in 1993–1995, and was in the delegation during the visits of President to Tehran (1994, 2000, 2002), Ashgabat (1994) and Mashhad (1996). He made contributions to the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Republic of Azerbaijan and Republic of Slovenia. After the end of diplomatic activity in Iran, he returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in November 1998, and took a position of the head of the department of Middle East and South Asia of the Second Territory Office since 2000. Vakilov was risen to the rank of the second degree counselor on July 1, 2003. On September 15, 2003, he was appointed a counselor of the Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the Islamic Republic of Iran. After the earthquake occurred on 26 December 2003 in Bam, Kerman province,