According to the Anadolu Agency, a letter nominating the candidate was sent to the President of the UN General Assembly. This information was confirmed to the agency by Turkey’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Ahmet Yildiz.
According to the diplomat, Turkey decided to put forward Sinirlioğlu’s candidacy to facilitate the process of electing a new UN Secretary-General, as the parties involved have so far been unable to reach a consensus on a single candidate.
Feridun Sinirlioğlu is an experienced Turkish diplomat who served as Turkey’s Minister for Foreign Affairs from August to November 2015, as well as Turkey’s Permanent Representative to the UN from 2016 to 2023. He is currently the Secretary General of the OSCE.
This brings the total number of candidates for the post of UN Secretary-General to eight. The term of office of the current head of the organisation, António Guterres, expires on 31 December 2026.
There is as yet no consensus amongst the members of the UN Security Council
Prior to Sinirlioğlu’s nomination, the official candidates participating in the selection process were:
– Rafael Mariano Grossi – Director General of the IAEA (Argentina);
– Rebecca Greenspan – Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), former Vice-President of Costa Rica;
– María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés – former Minister for Foreign Affairs and former Minister of Defence of Ecuador;
– Caroline Rodriguez-Birkett – Permanent Representative of Guyana to the UN;
– Yvonne Baki – former Ambassador of Ecuador to the US and France;
– Olara Otunnu – former Permanent Representative of Uganda to the UN;
– Lana Zaki Nuseibah (Lana Nuseibeh) – Minister of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the United Arab Emirates.
During the preliminary vote on 16 October, all seven candidates received negative votes from the permanent members of the Security Council. International observers note that none of them currently has sufficient support to head the organisation.
In that round, 70-year-old Rebecca Greenspan received the most support. Nine of the 15 Security Council members voted for her, five voted against, and one abstained. Two of the negative votes came from permanent members of the Security Council.
Greenspan’s closest rivals – IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi of Argentina and Guyana’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Carolyn Rodriguez-Birkett – each received eight votes in favour and six against. Both also received two negative votes from permanent members of the Security Council.
A compromise is needed
The results of the preliminary vote do not mean that the candidates have been definitively rejected. Rather, they indicate the positions of the Security Council members, making it possible to determine whether a consensus is possible in the final vote. To be officially nominated for the post of UN Secretary-General, a candidate must secure at least nine votes out of the 15 Security Council members and avoid a veto from any of the five permanent members. The candidate must then be approved by the UN General Assembly.
In this context, Turkey has put forward its own candidate, despite established UN practice. According to this practice, the post should this time be filled by a representative from Latin America and the Caribbean. “Ankara respects established practice. That is precisely why we have so far refrained from putting forward our own candidate. However, as the parties involved in the process have not yet managed to reach a consensus on a single candidate, our actions are aimed at facilitating the election of a new UN Secretary-General,” emphasised Ahmet Yildiz.
It is worth recalling that US President Donald Trump has also become involved in the search for a compromise, having suggested the possibility of putting forward former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for the post. However, he has not yet been officially nominated as a candidate via the UN Security Council.
This story was translated with the assistance of artificial intelligence.The translation was also reviewed by the Logos Press editorial team.
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