Kemal Kavur

Who was Kemal Kavur?

Nejad Kemal Kavur was a Turkish diplomat.

Kemal Kavur was educated at the Lycee Galatasay, where he also excelled as a football player, and studied at Faculty Political Science in Ankara. He did his post-graduate degree at University of Berlin, specialisizing in public international law. He then joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kemal Ataturk's newly formed Turkish Republic, quickly rising within it, serving as Chargé d'affaires at the Berlin embassy to Adolf Hitler's Germany. After the war, Kavur was appointed ambassador to Finland in Helsinki, and that is where his son Celal was born in 1949. Kavur then served as ambassador in Sofia, Bulgaria, followed by five years in Moscow—a challenging ambassadorial posting, under Nikita Khrushchev at the height of the Cold War. Kavur then became ambassador to Japan, and to the U.K.. He finally retired after serving as ambassador in Bern, Switzerland.

Kemal Kavur was an "old school" diplomat, believing totally in savoir-faire and building bridges, while his guiding force was the love of his country and freedom and democracy.