Senior Turkish diplomat to chair OECD’s Executive Committee

ANKARA

Senior career diplomat Mithat Rende of Turkey has been elected as chair of the Executive Committee of the Paris-based Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Foreign Ministry has announced.

Ambassador Rende has been serving as the head of Turkey’s Permanent Delegation to the OECD since the summer of 2013.

The Executive Committee is one of three Standing Committees besides the External Relations Committee (ERC) and the Budget Committee, which are in charge of the OECD Council’s operational issues.

“Ambassador Rende’s election to this task points at our country’s significant role in the OECD. Within this framework, our country will continue providing active contribution to the OECD’s work and activities,” the Foreign Ministry said in a written statement released late Dec. 4.

Turkey is a founding member of the 34-member international body, which aims at promoting policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.

While serving as the Foreign Ministry’s Director General for Multilateral Economic Affairs and Energy before being appointed to his current post, Ambassador Rende, 61, served as the Turkish point of contact at the U.N. Panel of Inquiry that was established by the U.N. secretary-general following the deadly Israeli raid in May 2010 on the Mavi Marmara humanitarian aid convoy, which led to the killing of 10 Turkish citizens who were trying to break the blockade on Gaza.

Rende also served as the Climate Change Negotiator and member of the Turkish Nuclear Energy Commission. He was Turkey’s ambassador in Doha between 2007 and 2009. Previous assignments include diplomatic postings in Damascus, Rome, Brussels (NATO), Sofia, Vienna and London, where he also served as the Deputy Permanent Representative of Turkey to the International Maritime Organization.