Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan revealed new posts for two diplomats over the weekend. Metin Feyzioğlu, Turkish ambassador to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), was reassigned as Türkiye’s ambassador to Czechia. Deputy Foreign Minister Yasin Ekrem Serim will replace Feyzioğlu as the new ambassador to Lefkoşa (Nicosia).
Feyzioğlu, former head of the Turkish Bar Association, was appointed as ambassador to the TRNC in 2022. In Czechia, he will replace Egemen Bağış, Türkiye’s former EU minister and former chief negotiator with the European Union, who was appointed as ambassador in 2019.
Serim, appointed deputy foreign minister in 2022, is a young diplomat who started his career in Türkiye’s now-defunct EU Ministry in 2010. After stints in the Presidency and now-defunct Prime Ministry, he was appointed as chief adviser of the foreign minister in 2016 in his first tenure at the ministry.
Türkiye is the main advocate of international recognition of the TRNC; something brought to the spotlight during the 50th anniversary of Türkiye's Peace Operation on the divided island. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, accompanied by the main opposition leader, visited the island on July 20 to mark the anniversary and reiterate support for Turkish Cypriots as leader of the guarantor state against any "unilateral" solution to the Cyprus question by ignoring sovereignty right of the TRNC.
