Ethnic Armenian rejects post of Turkey’s ambassador to OECD

March 30, 2011 - 13:21 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkish officials confirmed that Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu planned to appoint a Turkish-Armenian as the country’s permanent representative to a leading international organization.

However, because the academic Davutoğlu had in mind prefers to continue his career in academia, the planned appointment did not take place, a senior diplomat told Today’s Zaman. Had he accepted, the academic would have been appointed Turkey’s permanent representative to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the same diplomat said.

Davutoğlu himself already disclosed his intention last week in Istanbul at a closed session of the Wilton Park conference on “Turkey’s policies of engagement in the contemporary world,” the diplomat confirmed, while noting that the minister did not, however, disclose the name of the academic he planned to appoint.

“We don’t solely want to continue our efforts for normalization with Armenia, but we also want to launch a new opening to our citizens of Armenian ancestry. Accordingly, we wanted to appoint an Armenian as envoy to the OECD. However, he did not accept the proposal because he is busy with his academic research,” the diplomat quoted Davutoğlu as saying at the conference.

Earlier, an informed source said that Daron Acemoglu, economist of Armenian descent was nominated as Turkey’s ambassador to France.