Last Updated On: Dec 15 2020 02:27 Gmt+3
The United States’ ambassador to Turkey David Satterfield has served in Ankara for over 18 months now, but has remained generally silent on human rights. This pattern has persisted as the Turkish government continues its crackdown on protests and other forms of criticism against it in the last year.
Satterfield previously served as the acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near-Eastern Affairs and before that as the ambassador to Baghdad at the height of the Iraq War, in which the diplomat played an instrumental role during the Bush administration. He was later sent to serve in Rome where he spent the entire tenure of the Obama administration away from home.
Last Updated On: Dec 18 2020 08:06 Gmt+3
The Turkish Foreign Ministry announced a reshuffle of its ambassadors abroad, and one of those being replaced is Turkey’s ambassador to the United States Serdar Kılıç. His successor was announced to be Murat Mercan, the current Turkish ambassador to Japan.
Kılıç has served in Washington since 2014, where his tenure became defined by his combativeness against critics of Turkey. In a sense, he grew into a fitting frontman for the new, tenser U.S.-Turkish relations that marked the past few years.
“As ambassador, Kılıç was well suited to an era in which Ankara wasn’t trying too hard to make any friends in Washington,” said Nicholas Danforth, an expert on Turkey and senior visiting fellow at the U.S. German Marshall Fund.