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List of notable diplomats of the Republic of Turkey , past and present. The names are listed in an alphabetical order according to their last names, with their positions and other relevant information.
Ho Feng-Shan was a Chinese diplomat and writer for the Republic of China. When he was consul-general in Vienna during World War II, he risked his life and career to save "perhaps tens of thousands" of Jews by issuing them visas, disobeying the instruction of his superiors. It is known that Ho issued the 200th visa in June 1938, signed the 1906th visa on 27 October 1938, and was recalled to China in May 1940. Ho died in 1997 and his actions were recognized posthumously when the Israeli organization Yad Vashem in 2000 awarded Ho Feng-Shan the title "Righteous Among the Nations".
İsmail Necdet Kent was a Turkish diplomat, who claimed to have risked his life to save Jews during World War II. While vice-consul in Marseilles, France between 1941 and 1944, he allegedly gave documents of citizenship to dozens of Turkish Jews living in France who did not have proper identity papers, to save them from deportation to the Nazi gas chambers. These claims, first published in an appendix to Stanford J. Shaw's book Turkey and the Holocaust (1993), have not been independently verified; no survivors or their descendants have confirmed the account. Marc David Baer and other historians have documented several inconsistencies in Kent's story; Baer concludes that it is "manufactured" and Uğur Ümit Üngör calls it a "complete fabrication".
Namık Kemal Yolga (1914–2001) was a Turkish diplomat and statesman. During World War II, Yolga was the Vice-Consul at the Turkish Embassy in Paris, France. He claimed to have saved the lives of Turkish Jews from the Nazis but this has been challenged due to lack of evidence. In fact, evidence suggests that Yolga was actually instrumental in stripping France-born Turkish Jews of citizenship, which could have saved them from the Holocaust. He has been given a national award by the Turkish government and a Jewish foundation in Turkey.
Munir Ertegun was a Turkish legal counsel in international law to the "Sublime Porte" of the late Ottoman Empire and a diplomat of the Republic of Turkey during its early years. Ertegun married Emine Hayrünnisa Rüstem in 1917 and the couple had three children, two of whom were Nesuhi and Ahmet Ertegun, the brothers who founded Atlantic Records and became iconic figures in the American music industry.
Carl Lutz was a Swiss diplomat. He served as the Swiss Vice-Consul in Budapest, Hungary, from 1942 until the end of World War II. He is credited with saving over 62,000 Jews during the Second World War in a very large rescue operation.
Zeki Kuneralp was a Turkish diplomat, who was brought up in exile in Switzerland after the murder of his father, Ali Kemal Bey, during the Turkish War of Independence. After his education he returned to Turkey and, with the express approval of President İsmet İnönü, entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At first taking up diplomatic posts throughout Europe, Kuneralp was later appointed Turkish Ambassador to Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Spain, as well as twice serving as Secretary-General of the Foreign Ministry. He survived an assassination attempt which claimed the lives of his wife and her brother in Madrid in 1978. He retired, in part due to ill-health, in 1979, renouncing the world and current affairs, and turning his attention instead to writing and publishing. His autobiography was translated into English in 1992, while others of his books are considered important sources of twentieth century Turkish history. He died in Istanbul in 1998.
Behiç Erkin was a Turkish career officer, Armenian genocide perpetrator, first director (1920–1926) of the Turkish State Railways, nationalized under his auspices, statesman and diplomat of the Turkish Republic. He was Minister of Public Works, 1926–1928, and deputy for three terms; and an ambassador. He served as Turkey's ambassador to Budapest between 1928–1939, and to Paris and Vichy between August 1939-August 1943.
Ali Kemal Bey was a British-Turkish journalist, newspaper editor, poet, liberal-leaning politician, and government official who was for some three months Minister of the Interior in the government of Damat Ferid Pasha, the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. He was murdered by paramilitary officers during the Turkish War of Independence.
Selahattin Ülkümen was a Turkish diplomat who was recognized by Israel as one of the Righteous Among the Nations in 1989, with his name being listed at Yad Vashem in the city of Jerusalem. During World War II, he was serving as a consul-general of Turkey on the island of Rhodes, Greece, which had been invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany. Ülkümen assisted the island's Jews by personally intervening to prevent as many of them as possible from being deported by the Germans amidst the Holocaust. In total, he managed to save around 50 Jews—13 on the basis of their Turkish citizenship, and the remainder through his own initiatives.
Joel Lion is an Israeli diplomat, he serves currently as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the State of Israel to the Republic of Armenia and to the Republic of Moldova with residence in Jerusalem. He is the former Ambassador of the State of Israel to Ukraine.
A number of Arabs and Muslims participated in efforts to help save Jewish residents of Arab lands from the Holocaust while fascist regimes controlled the territory. From June 1940 through May 1943, Axis powers, namely Germany and Italy, controlled large portions of North Africa. Approximately 1 percent of the Jewish residents, about 4,000 to 5,000 Jews, of that territory were murdered by these regimes during this period. The relatively small percentage of Jewish casualties, as compared to the 60 percent of European Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust, is largely due to the successful Allied North African Campaign and the repelling of the Axis powers from North Africa.
Antisemitism in Turkey refers to acts of hostility against Jews in the Republic of Turkey, as well as the promotion of antisemitic views and beliefs in Turkey.
Mehmed Fuad Carim was a Turkish politician and diplomat. On 1 June 1934, he was appointed as the Turkish Consul-General at Marseilles and remained there until 30 May 1945.
Hüseyin Numan Menemencioğlu (1893–1958) was a Turkish diplomat and politician.
The United States established relations with North African countries and with the Ottoman Empire after 1780.
Prior to joining the Allied Powers late in the war, Turkey was officially neutral in World War II. Despite its neutrality, Turkey maintained strong diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany during the period of the Holocaust. During the war, Turkey denaturalized 3,000 to 5,000 Jews living abroad; between 2,200 and 2,500 Turkish Jews were deported to extermination camps such as Auschwitz and Sobibor; and several hundred interned in Nazi concentration camps. When Nazi Germany encouraged neutral countries to repatriate their Jewish citizens, Turkish diplomats received instructions to avoid repatriating Jews even if they could prove their Turkish nationality. Turkey was also the only neutral country to implement anti-Jewish laws during the war. Between 1940 and 1944, around 13,000 Jews passed through Turkey from Europe to Mandatory Palestine. According to the research of historian Rıfat Bali, more Turkish Jews suffered as a result of discriminatory policies during the war than were saved by Turkey. Since the war, Turkey and parts of the Turkish Jewish community have promoted exaggerated claims of rescuing Jews, using this myth to promote Armenian genocide denial.
Selim Kuneralp is a retired Turkish diplomat.
Sadi Eldem (1910–1995) was a Turkish diplomat and served as the ambassador of Turkey to Spain between 1969 and 1972 and then to Iran from 1972 to 1975.
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