Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu

Çavuşoğlu joined the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in 2003, and soon after was named the head of the Turkish delegation and a vice-president of the Assembly.

During the January 2010 session of the Assembly, Çavuşoğlu was nominated—and elected on 25 January 2010—to replace outgoing President Lluís Maria De Puig of Spain.^[10] In an October reshuffle, this was the reason given for why he did not receive extra responsibilities in Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's government.^[11][12][13] His candidacy for this post was supported by all of Turkey's main parties. He became president just months before Turkey took up the chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (November 2010), and at the same time that there was a Turkish president of the Congress of the Council of Europe.^[14] In 2012, Çavuşoğlu was succeeded by France's Jean-Claude Mignon.

Çavuşoğlu was criticized by the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet because of his intervention in the municipality election in Antalya that took place on 30 March 2014. When the opposing party candidate Mustafa Akaydin of the Turkish Republican People's Party was ahead of the ruling party candidate, he visited the courthouse with his supporters and interrupted the counting process.^[15]

After his interruption, the counting of votes was stopped. It was claimed that the votes not already counted were from suburbs where the opposing party had more supporters.^[16]

On 11 March 2017, Çavuşoğlu was banned from landing in Rotterdam, the Netherlands,^[17][18] after threats of Turkish sanctions if his visit to Rotterdam was impeded, made "the search for a reasonable solution impossible".^[19] Çavuşoğlu had planned to organize a large gathering to talk about the 2017 Turkish constitutional referendum, in which many Dutch-based émigrés can vote.^[17] However, his presence was claimed by the Dutch authorities to be a threat to public safety, and Çavuşoğlu was turned away, despite being the Turkish Foreign Minister.^[17]

Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called the Netherlands, "Nazi remnants" and "fascists,"^[17] which Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte called "a crazy remark."^[18] Çavuşoğlu followed by defending Erdoğan's remark,^[20] and by saying that the Netherlands was the "capital of fascism".^[21]

In August 2021, Çavuşoğlu said that "Turkey was in talks with all parties in Afghanistan, including the Taliban", and "views positively the messages the Islamist militants have sent" since the fall of Kabul. The Ministry also said that the Turkish embassy in Kabul would continue to function and is not expected to close.^[22]

In October 2021, Çavuşoğlu met with the Afghan foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Ankara.^[23] He urged the international community to engage with Taliban officials.