Turkey supports Rutte as next NATO Secretary-General: Report

Turkey will become the 29th member of NATO to support Prime Minister Mark Rutte as the next secretary-general of the military alliance, source close to NATO confirmed to both NOS and ANP. Rutte visited Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday to shore up support for his bid to take over for Jens Stoltenberg when he steps down later this year.

Turkey is one of four NATO countries that have not yet backed Rutte publicly. Rutte needs unanimous support from all 32 NATO countries to win the job.

Rutte is one of two remaining candidates for the role, competing with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis. He was expected to drop out of the race if Turkey backs Rutte for the job, though his preference is for the new secretary-general to be a representative of a country in Central or Eastern Europe.

Aside from Romania, Rutte has yet to win over Hungary and Slovakia. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has said he will not be swayed to support Rutte’s candidacy.

Turkey’s military is the second largest in NATO. Only the United States is larger, and that country already signaled its support for Rutte. The U.S. wanted to present Rutte as the next NATO leader by now, but now the prime minister’s supporters think it might be possible to seal the deal by the meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Prague at the end of May. The decision should be formalized by the NATO summit in Washington in July.

Rutte paid his own costs to visit Erdogan last week, as the trip was unrelated to his current position as prime minister. He needed to convince Turkey’s leader that he would not play favorites by being biased towards the European Union, and Erdogan wanted assurances that their fight against terrorism, including Kurdish groups, would be taken seriously.

One complication for Rutte is that the Netherlands is not closer to naming his own replacement. Rutte said he would not seek an opportunity to return to office after his fourth Cabinet collapsed last summer. Although elections were held in November, a new coalition government has yet to emerge.

Rutte's VVD has been in talks with the far-right PVV, and two other right-wing parties, NSC and BBB, in an attempt to form a new Cabinet. The current round of talks should come to an end next week.