Ambassador mars US visit with surprise resignation

The Foreign Ministry offered no information as to why Ambassador Nabi Şensoy resigned, in a statement released late on Wednesday, but sources told Today’s Zaman that the career diplomat had asked the ministry to reassign him to Ankara after a row with Davutoğlu over the minister’s attendance in one-on-one talks with between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and US President Barack Obama at the White House on Monday.

According to the sources’ account, during the preparations for Erdoğan’s Washington visit, US officials had told the Turkish government via Şensoy that the president wanted a one-on-one meeting with Erdoğan, in addition to a scheduled meeting attended by both leaders and their delegations. The government responded favorably, but Erdoğan insisted that the meeting be attended by the Turkish and US top diplomats as well, given Davutoğlu’s deep involvement and expertise in issues to be discussed with the US president.

When the meeting attended by the delegations ended, President Obama said it was time for one-on-one talks. Davutoğlu stayed in the room, assuming that he and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were also part of the talks, but was told by US organizers that the meeting had been arranged as one between Obama and Erdoğan only and that no one else, except their interpreters, would be present.

Şensoy (L) together with Erdoğan (C) and then-Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül at a press conference in Washington following talks between Erdoğan and then-US President George W. Bush in 2006.

Surprised, Davutoğlu asked Şensoy why the foreign ministers were not part of the meeting, as requested by the Turkish government. The content of the conversation is not clear, but according to the sources’ account and reports in the media, Şensoy said he took responsibility, without offering the minister an explanation, and that he was ready to submit his resignation if Davutoğlu asked for it. Davutoğlu reportedly did not take the conversation any further while the Obama-Erdoğan meeting was in progress. Following the conclusion of Erdoğan’s visit, Şensoy wrote to the Foreign Ministry and formally asked to return to Ankara.

In a statement, Foreign Ministry spokesman Burak Özügergin said Şensoy asked to quit his post and return to Ankara on Dec. 8, a day after Erdoğan’s White House talks, and that his request had been accepted. Özügergin noted that Şensoy’s term would expire in the first half of 2010 because the 65-year-old diplomat was to retire as there is an age limitation for diplomats. Şensoy would spend the rest of his career in Ankara.

In an interesting twist of fate, Şensoy was involved in a similar incident nearly two decades ago, during a visit by then President Turgut Özal to the White House for talks with then-US President George H. W. Bush. The foreign minister at that time, Ali Bozer, resigned after he was excluded from Özal-Bush talks in 1990 while Şensoy, then the presidential undersecretary, stayed in the room.

Political motives?

Şensoy’s unexpected resignation cast a shadow on Erdoğan’s Washington visit, which has widely been hailed as successful by the Turkish media. Some reports linked the resignation to the alleged neglect of Şensoy by Erdoğan and Davutoğlu during the visit, saying the top government officials had excluded him from several official meetings in Washington. But others said there could be political motives behind the ambassador’s surprise resignation just months before his retirement.

Şensoy is believed to belong to a conservative camp within the Foreign Ministry that is skeptical of the government’s proactive foreign diplomacy and its attempts to expand influence in the Middle East. His resignation may thus fuel an existing rift between the government and the secularist, pro-status quo diplomatic circles. The tension was most apparent when Erdoğan blamed “mon cher” diplomats of not being able to catch up with his government’s active foreign policy vision following his walkout from a World Economic Forum in January after a heated exchange with Israeli President Shimon Peres over an Israeli offensive in Gaza.

There was even speculation that Şensoy might be looking for a political home and that he might have just found one by scoring a sensational goal against the government right before his retirement. “Şensoy wanted to steal the show from Erdoğan in the US visit, which was highly valued by Erdoğan. He had nothing to lose, anyway, since he was retiring in a few months. Instead of retiring silently, he preferred to return to Ankara as a diplomat who rebuked the prime minister and the foreign minister,” wrote Yavuz Oğhan on a CNN Türk Web site. “Who knows, this diplomatic and equally political move might open the way for a political career for Şensoy after his retirement,” Oğhan went on, suggesting that there could be an opening for him in the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), where Onur Öymen, a former diplomat, is fast losing credibility because of recent controversial remarks defending the killing of tens of thousands of people in Dersim, now Tunceli, in an anti-riot operation in the late 1930s.

US: Visit a ‘great success’

US officials in Ankara declined to comment on the resignation, telling Today’s Zaman that the prime minister’s visit had been a “great success.”