Arif Keskin, who works on the Middle East region, especially Iran, was born in Mughan district of Azerbaijan in Iran. He graduated from the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Tabriz University in 1993. He continued his master's and doctoral studies at Ankara University, Faculty of Political Sciences, Department of Political Science. Since 1999, Keskin has worked as a Middle East expert in various think tanks such as ASAM (Eurasian Strategic Research Centre), TÜRKSAM, 21st Century Turkey Institute and ORSAM.