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Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations (IDFR) The Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations, also known as IDFR, was established on 1 July 1991 under the Prime Minister’s Department. On 12 August of the same year, it was offcially launched by the then Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad. On 27 March 2004, it offcially became part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Malaysia. The Institute is housed on the former site of the Ministry on Jalan Wisma Putra in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. As the training arm of the Ministry, IDFR offers various training courses for its offcers and offcers from other ministries and government agencies. These include diplomatic training, pre-posting orientation, public diplomacy and media skills as well as Arabic, English, French, Mandarin and Spanish language courses. A Conversational Malay course is also offered to members of the diplomatic corps. IDFR also conducts training courses for international participants from developing countries under the Malaysian Technical Cooperation Programme (MTCP), Colombo Plan member countries as well as Commonwealth countries, and the courses include diplomatic training, crisis management and strategic analysis. It also regularly receives requests to train heads of mission and mid-career diplomats from other countries and have trained, among others, offcials from Timor Leste, Iraq and Libya. Public lectures, forums, round table discussions, seminars and workshops are also organised by IDFR to complement its training courses and these see participations from government offcials, academicians and university students, representatives from think tanks, non-governmental organisations and training institutes, as well as members of the diplomatic corps based in Kuala Lumpur. Among the prominent fgures who have addressed audience at IDFR are Kof Annan, Haris Silajdzic, Yasser Arafat, Benazir Bhutto, Nelson Mandela, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Tun Dr. Mahathir 8 Mohamad, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr., Ban Ki- moon, Gareth Evans and His Royal Highness Sultan Nazrin Muizzuddin Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan Azlan Muhibbuddin Shah, the Sultan of Perak Darul Ridzuan and the Institute’s Royal Patron. IDFR also has a panel of Distinguished Fellows who contribute ideas and support the growth of the Institute and they are made up of experienced practitioners and outstanding academicians in the feld of diplomacy and international relations. To date, IDFR has established linkages with various diplomatic academies and training institutes worldwide including the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Federation, Diplomatic Academy of Ukraine, United Nations Institute for Training and Research, Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy, University of World Economy and Diplomacy, Uzbekistan, London School of Economics, Tallinn University of 2015 Prospectus