15 Facts About Zeki Kuneralp

Zeki Kuneralp was a Turkish diplomat, who was brought up in exile in Switzerland after the murder of his father, Ali Kemal, during the Turkish War of Independence.

At first taking up diplomatic posts throughout Europe, Kuneralp was later appointed Turkish Ambassador to Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Spain, as well as twice serving as Secretary-General of the Foreign Ministry.

Zeki Kuneralp survived an assassination attempt which claimed the lives of his wife and her brother in Madrid in 1978.

Zeki Kuneralp retired, in part due to ill-health, in 1979, renouncing the world and current affairs, and turning his attention instead to writing and publishing.

Zeki Kuneralp's autobiography was translated into English in 1992, while others of his books are considered important sources of twentieth century Turkish history.

Zeki Kuneralp was detained when the revolutionaries won in 1922 and taken to Ankara to an Independence Tribunal, but the ferry he was put on stopped at Izmit and there he was murdered by young Turkish soldiers.

Zeki Kuneralp began life as an Ottoman Turk with only given names.

Zeki Kuneralp was educated in Switzerland and in 1938 gained a Law doctorate from the University of Bern, where he belonged to the "Zahringia Bernensis" fraternity.

When permission for him to enter the Turkish Foreign Ministry was granted personally by President Ismet Inonu in 1942, Zeki Kuneralp began his career there, going on to become one of the most brilliant diplomats of his generation.

Zeki Kuneralp was ambassador to Bern from 1960 until 1964 when he was made ambassador to London from 1964 to 1966 and again from 1969 to 1972, while in the interval he served twice as Secretary-General of the Foreign Ministry in Ankara.

In 1978, while Zeki Kuneralp was serving as ambassador in Madrid, three gunmen opened fire on his car one morning outside his home.

One of his British friends, Sir Bernard Burrows, a former ambassador to Ankara, said that Zeki Kuneralp could best be described as a saint, adding that this was an unusual quality in a diplomat.

Zeki Kuneralp always retained his affection for Switzerland, the country of his upbringing, and spoke the Swiss dialect of German fluently, sometimes startling groups of Swiss visitors.

Zeki Kuneralp had two sons who both survive him, Sinan, a leading Istanbul publisher, and Selim, who went into the diplomatic service and has been Turkey's ambassador to Sweden and South Korea.

Zeki Kuneralp is among founders of a Francophone High School in Ankara called "Lycee Tevfik Fikret".