Şensoy’s possible successor talk of the town in Ankara

The resignation of Turkey's outgoing ambassador to the United States, Nabi Şensoy, came after a dispute over protocol with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu during Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's high-profile White House talks. The Foreign Ministry offered no information as to why Şensoy resigned, in a statement released late on Wednesday.

However, 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 between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and US President Barack Obama at the White House on Monday.

In Washington and later in Mexico City where Erdoğan, accompanied by Davutoğlu, paid an official visit, Turkish officials remained silent over the issue. Erdoğan maintained his stance during a press conference on Friday when he arrived in İstanbul.

However, speaking with reporters on board a plane on his way back to Turkey, Erdoğan offered some clues, saying that Turkey’s active foreign policy drive needed active diplomats.

Staff involved in Turkey’s foreign policy should be enthusiastic, Erdoğan said: “With some ambassadors, you can see that they are restless. However, you can observe in some ambassadors that they are just killing time before the expiry of their term.”

In Ankara, speculation over the name to replace Şensoy has mounted in the meantime, while diplomatic sources were tight-lipped on the issue. Traditionally, either the undersecretary of the Foreign Ministry or the most long-serving deputy undersecretary is posted to Washington, reflecting the importance Ankara attaches to this key post.

Yet, since Şensoy’s resignation came at an unexpected time and only a few months after a reshuffle which included new appointments to 45 key positions took effect, Ankara has in a way been unprepared for such appointment.

However, the names of Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Ambassador Feridun Sinirlioğlu and Ambassador Ünal Çeviköz, the deputy undersecretary for the Caucasus and Central Asia, as well as that of Deputy Undersecretary Ambassador Namık Tan, who has most recently represented Turkey in Tel Aviv, have been mentioned a lot during conversations in Ankara.

During the reshuffle which took effect in August, Çeviköz had remained in post although he had finished his term at the headquarters and was ready for being appointed abroad. The government particularly requested that Çeviköz remain in post due to the successful role he has played in the ongoing efforts for normalization of relations with Armenia with which Turkey has no diplomatic ties.

Sinirlioğlu, on the other hand, has held the undersecretary post since the August reshuffle, with sources close to the ministry saying that he is of a like mind with Davutoğlu concerning their approaches to foreign policy. This has been considered as a fact for Davutoğlu’s unwillingness to send such a diplomat abroad, at a time when he needed to coordinate various efforts concerning Turkey’s multidimensional foreign policy.

Sinirlioğlu had served as deputy undersecretary since 2007. Before that, he was Turkey’s ambassador to Israel. Sinirlioğlu took part extensively in the indirect talks between Syria and Israel and played a major role in efforts to normalize relations between Turkey and Israel after a crisis over Turkey’s severe criticism of Israel’s Gaza offensive in January. His appointment to the high-level Foreign Ministry job was seen at the time as a reflection of Davutoğlu’s willingness to get more involved in Middle Eastern affairs.

Tan was also appointed to his current post in the August reshuffle. He was the ministry spokesperson before being posted to Tel Aviv in 2006. During this post, he had worked closely with the-then foreign minister, President Abdullah Gül. His past experience at the Turkish Embassy in Washington is shown by some observers as an additional factor for his appointment to the US capital as ambassador.