Turkey has given priority to boosting the presence of women and their level of activity in foreign policy. The country has increased the number of women ambassadors to 63, with 33 of them representing Turkey in foreign countries.
They were assigned to different parts of the world including Belarus, Chile, Kuwait, and Cuba. Respectively, Kezban Nilvana Darama took the Minsk office in 2015, Gülin Dinç was appointed to Santiago in 2018, Ayşe Hilal Sayan Koytak took the Kuwait office in 2017 and Ayşe Berris Ekinci was appointed to Havana in 2016.
Turkey appointed its first woman ambassador in 1982 when Filiz Dinçmen, 43 at the time, was appointed as envoy to the Netherlands. Since then, the number of women ambassadors has grown over the years.
Turkey also increases its diplomatic activity through new missions, ranking among the five countries with the number of its diplomatic representatives abroad.
According to the Lowy Institute global diplomacy index, Turkey and Japan shared the fifth spot with 229 diplomatic missions in 2017. However, Turkey recently expanded the number to 242, which stood at 163 when the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) came to power in 2002. "Turkey is expected to move up to fourth with the new embassies opened this year," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hami Aksoy said on Friday while addressing reporters. Within the framework of Turkey's Africa initiative, the number of Turkish embassies throughout the continent rose to 42 in 2018, up from 12 in 2009. The goal of the ministry is to increase this number to 50. Regarding the same index, the U.S. is at the top of the list in 2017 with 273 foreign missions, followed by China with 268, France with 266 and Russia with 242.
