NEW YORK — Türkiye has formally nominated Feridun Sinirlioglu, the Secretary-General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), as its candidate to become the next Secretary-General of the United Nations, Anadolu Agency reported on Friday, October 30, citing Turkish Foreign Ministry sources.
Source: Anadolu Agency, Oct 30 2026
Türkiye's Permanent Representative to the UN, Ahmet Yildiz, delivered a nomination letter from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the presidents of the UN General Assembly and the Security Council. Yildiz confirmed the step directly to Envoy Magazine: 'Today, I submitted the nomination of Ambassador Feridun Sinirlioglu to the United Nations secretary-general position by a letter from President Erdogan.' The UN-focused outlet PassBlue also reported the formal nomination, noting that Ankara cited the stalemate in the straw polls.
Source: Envoy Magazine, Oct 30 2026
A bid timed to a deadlocked race
The nomination follows the latest Security Council straw poll — the seventh round, in which, as Awaaz Punjab reported earlier, Costa Rica's Rebeca Grynspan remained the frontrunner but still faced four 'discourage' votes, and late entrant Lana Nusseibeh of the UAE received seven votes in favour and six discouraging her candidacy, according to Envoy. Yildiz said Ankara had been waiting for the result of the latest round of informal voting to formalise the nomination, and explained the reasoning: since none of the candidates from Latin America and the Caribbean had secured the required majority in colour-coded votes, and other nominees were entering the race from outside that region, the Turkish government decided to nominate Sinirlioglu.
Anadolu listed several other declared candidates, among them Rebeca Grynspan, Rafael Grossi, Macky Sall, Michelle Bachelet and Maria Fernanda Espinosa. Under UN procedure, a candidate needs at least nine votes in the 15-member Security Council and no veto from any of its five permanent members — the United States, China, France, Russia and the United Kingdom. The Council recommends a candidate and the 193-member General Assembly appoints them. The winner succeeds Antonio Guterres, whose term ends on December 31, with the new Secretary-General due to start on January 1, 2027.
Who is Sinirlioglu?
Sinirlioglu, born in 1956, studied political science and international relations at Ankara University and Bogazici University before joining Türkiye's Foreign Ministry in 1982, Envoy reported. He is a former Turkish foreign minister and a former Permanent Representative of Türkiye to the United Nations, and was appointed OSCE Secretary-General in December 2024 — a three-year mandate that runs to December 2027. An Associated Press report published earlier in October said diplomats briefed on the matter described Türkiye's interest in Sinirlioglu as serious, after he floated his candidacy on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly's high-level week in September.
The bid is expected to face strong opposition from Latin America and from advocacy groups, Envoy reported, because it goes against the informal regional rotation — this cycle has widely been seen as Latin America's turn — and against widespread support for a woman to lead the organisation for the first time. No Secretary-General has come from a Muslim-majority country since Egypt's Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who served from 1992 to 1996. What happens next is further straw polling in the Security Council, where Sinirlioglu's support among the five veto-holding powers will decide whether the late Turkish entry becomes a real contender or stalls like the candidates before him.