By Barçın Yinanç
Turkey’s diplomatic network has grown from 163 missions in 2002 to over 260 missions, making it the third largest diplomatic network in the world.
Former Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu was particularly fond of projecting diplomatic clout through an expanding network of diplomatic missions.
“We were asked to go and find the most prestigious, nicest building in town,” a diplomat told me years ago.
As economic problems started to bite, austerity measures started to kick in by the end of the 2010s.
“I am supposed to get rid of the gardener at my residence,” the same ambassador serving in a far eastern capital told me. “There are all sorts of animals in the garden, even snakes, how am I supposed to take care of the garden on my own?” he lamented.
Perceived as “elites” and “elitist,” diplomats have always been looked down upon by the rest of the bureaucracy.
And it was not going to take long for the AKP, a party that won power claiming to be the voice of the underdog, to target diplomats. Following Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu’s appointment as foreign minister, the staff working at ambassadors’ residences and consulates general came under increased scrutiny.
Why is there a need for a cook? Why should ambassadors employ staff to clean their residences?
These questions produced a decision. Employees at residences would be allowed to remain in their positions until they chose to leave or retire. However, once an employee left, the position would not be filled.
This decision was not put into effect during Çavuşoğlu’s stint.
His successor, Hakan Fidan, however, decided to start implementation.
NEW RULES UNDER FIDAN
Having served as the head of the Turkish National Intelligence Organisation (MIT), Fidan brought with him at least a dozen officials from his former institution as well as rules that appear to be inspired by his more than a decade-long stint at the top of the spy agency.
One such decision was to forbid diplomats from using WhatsApp.
After announcing that the rate of Turkish diplomats married to foreigners had reached an unacceptable level — around 20% — he made it clear that, from then on, diplomats married to foreigners would not be appointed to sensitive, and therefore important, positions. Following Fidan’s warnings, there have been cases where female diplomats opted for divorce in order to drop a foreign family name.
Fidan’s team was particularly concerned that domestic staff in residences abroad could create vulnerabilities in terms of intelligence. Yet these employees are hired only after being vetted by MİT. If Fidan remains concerned about intelligence despite this vetting process, it raises an obvious question: does he not trust the very institution he headed for at least 13 years?
A CONSERVATIVE STEREOTYPE: THE MAN WORKS, THE WIFE COOKS
In the absence of domestic staff, who will perform these duties — the ambassadors themselves or their spouses?
The next generation of ambassadors would be advised to learn how to cook or to marry good cooks. Behind the austerity and intelligence reasoning, there is a suspicion the decision might reflect the conservative approach of the AKP to family life: the man does the work while women take care of the children and the home.
Yet the Foreign Ministry has a well-deserved reputation for having significantly increased the proportion of women among its personnel.
Starting from the 1990s, more and more women started to enter the ministry. Female diplomats account for around 37% while the rate of women ambassadors reached 27%.
Although Fidan appointed a woman as one of the three deputy foreign ministers, the general approach does not offer a particular encouragement for women.
Fidan also told new recruits not to marry one another, despite the fact that marriages between colleagues are relatively common in the Foreign Ministry. In the past there was an effort to appoint couples to nearby posts. Currently, to discourage such marriages, couples are sometimes assigned to different continents.
With his wife largely absent from public view, it is tempting to conclude that Fidan and his team favor a highly conservative division of labor between men and women, in which men work while women remain at home as housewives.
Or could this simply be another cost-cutting measure? Perhaps the intention is to require ambassadors and consuls general to bear the cost of employing domestic staff themselves. Yet if each ambassador were left to hire such personnel independently, would that not create precisely the kind of intelligence risk that Fidan’s policy is ostensibly intended to prevent?
At any rate, all the domestic personnel in nearly 300 diplomatic missions have hit the jackpot. They can demand higher wages or threaten to leave.
