Türkiye, Greece nominate joint candidates for OSCE posts

Türkiye and Greece have jointly nominated candidates for two positions within the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), signaling a thaw in their historically fraught relations.

In a letter dated late May, just before the candidacy deadline, Turkish and Greek foreign ministers Hakan Fidan and Giorgos Gerapetritis expressed their countries' support for joint candidates for the OSCE.

The letter, which reached Turkish and Greek officials at the OSCE headquarters in Vienna, outlined the nomination of Feridun Sinirlioğlu, a former Turkish deputy minister and permanent representative to the U.N., for the role of OSCE secretary-general.

Sinirlioğlu faces competition from five other candidates for the secretary-general post in the 57-member organization.

The text also proposed Mania Telalian, former director of the Greek Foreign Ministry's legal department, as director of the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.

The nominations come amid a thaw between the neighbors, initiated during a meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in a NATO summit in July last year.

The leaders agreed to "open a new page" in bilateral relations, leading to reciprocal visits and the signing of several cooperation agreements, including efforts to combat illegal migration.

A recent outcome of the rapprochement was Türkiye's support for Greece's campaign to retrieve the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum, rejecting the claim that Lord Elgin had Ottoman permission to remove the antiquities.

In a move hailed by officials in Athens as a "hugely important" admission, Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry's top anti-smuggling official...