Turkey will support Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte as the next secretary-general of the military alliance, Reuters reported citing NATO sources.
Rutte visited Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on April 27 to seek his support.
Turkey is one of four NATO countries that have yet to publicly back Rutte. He needs the unanimous support of all 32 NATO countries to win the post.
Rutte is competing with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis. The latter was expected to drop out of the race if Turkey backed the Dutchman for the post, although his preference is for the new secretary-general to be a representative of a Central or Eastern European country.
Apart from Romania, Rutte has not yet won Hungary and Slovakia. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said he will not support the candidacy.
The Turkish army is the second largest in NATO. It is only bigger than that of the United States, which has already signaled its support for Rutte. The decision should be formalized by the NATO summit in Washington in July. / BGNES
