There’s another new candidate for UN Secretary-General. On Friday, Turkey nominated Feridun Sinirlioglu to lead the United Nations. He is a former Turkish foreign minister and ambassador to the UN, and currently serves as Secretary-General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
Turkey’s nomination of Sinirlioglu came on the same day as the latest Security Council straw poll, in which Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan maintained a commanding lead. But Grynspan could still face opposition from permanent members of the Security Council. With no clear winner emerging, Turkey opted to put forward Sinirlioglu.
This is a very late entry into the race. The timing — his nomination comes just over a week after the UAE nominated Lana Nusseibeh — suggests that Security Council members may interpret Sinirlioglu’s candidacy through the geopolitical lens of the longstanding rivalry between T…