Türkiye's U.N. envoy Sedat Önal will replace Hasan Murat Mercan as Ankara's Ambassador to Washington, diplomatic sources said Wednesday.
Deputy Foreign Minister Ahmet Yıldız will take Önal's seat as the permanent representative of Türkiye to the U.N.
Sources noted that Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan announced the appointments to the diplomats in a phone call.
Yıldız earned his undergraduate degree in international relations from Ankara University.
He held several positions in the government as First Class Consul at Türkiye's Consulate General in Mosul from December 2009 to November 2011, and then as ambassador to Sarajevo from November 2011 to July 2014.
Subsequently, he became a senior diplomatic adviser to the prime minister in 2014 before transitioning to a senior diplomatic adviser to the president after the presidential elections. Yıldız then served as deputy foreign minister from 2016 to April 2018.
In 2018, he was elected to parliament for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and worked as the head of the Turkish Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and a member of the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye and NATO Parliamentary Assembly.
Yıldız began serving again as deputy foreign minister on June 22, 2023.
The nominations will be official when they are printed in the Official Gazette.
Previously serving as Türkiye's deputy foreign minister, Önal was appointed as Türkiye's U.N. envoy last February. He has been serving in the Foreign Ministry since 1989 and has worked in many countries including Kuwait, Germany, the United States, Iran, Austria and Jordan.
Ties between the countries have long been strained by issues ranging from Türkiye's purchase of Russian S-400 missile defense systems to U.S. support for the PKK terrorist group's Syrian offshoot YPG, which occupies chunks of northern Syria close to the Turkish border. However, significant positive developments have recently taken place, as U.S. President Joe Biden's administration finally approved the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Türkiye, ending years of sometimes tense negotiations after Ankara formally ratified Sweden's membership in NATO last month.
