Mahir Nakip was born in Kirkuk on August 23, 1952. After finishing his secondary education in Baghdad, he moved to Türkiye for higher studies and graduated from the Ankara Academy of Economics and Commercial Sciences. He completed his master’s degree in statistics while pursuing his doctorate in business administration at Gazi University.

Nakip, who has taken on various roles in academia and civil society, has also led the Iraqi Turks Association for some time. He received a two-year education in languages and marketing in the U.S. Between the years 1987 and 1990, he served as a lecturer at Omar Al-Mukhtar University in Libya. During the 1990 Gulf War, he worked as a consultant at the Prime Ministry. In 1993, he became the deputy dean at the first Business Administration faculty in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku. He continues to serve as the head of the International Trade and Finance department at Çankaya University.

Nakip, who actively participates in the political and academic aspects of the Turkmen community, was one of the founders of the Iraqi National Turkmen Party and also played a role during the early formation of the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF), established in 1995. In 1997, he spent a year as a visiting fellow at Rutgers University in the U.S. Between 2000 and 2002, he served as vice rector at Kazakhstan’s Akhmet Yassawi International University. Additionally, he served as deputy dean in 1991 at Erciyes University’s Faculty of Fine Arts and along with his brief role as dean.

Nakip, who is still a member of the Kirkuk Association’s board of management, speaks Arabic and English. He regularly writes about Iraq and Iraqi Turkmens for the Kardaşlık Journal, which is published in three languages—Turkish, English, and Arabic—every two months.