Turkish ambassador to Switzerland dies after long illness

GENEVA

Turkey's envoy to Bern died early Wednesday after a long battle with an undisclosed illness, the Turkish embassy said in a statement.

Ambassador Mehmet Tugrul Gucuk died in Turkey, according to the statement that did not provide any information about the nature of the illness.

"We are deeply saddened to announce the death of our dear ambassador Mr. Mehmet Gucuk," the statement said. "We wish Allah's mercy on our dear ambassador, a person whom we look up to with his vast fund of knowledge, friendliness and humility, and offer our condolences to his grieving family, our people, our foreign ministry community and Turkish people in Switzerland."

Gucuk had been receiving medical treatment in Turkey for the past three months while Volkan Karagoz assumed the duties of the charge d'affaires.

Gucuk's funeral will be held Wednesday at the Gulluk Mosque in Turkey's southwestern province of Bodrum.

Gucuk was born in Ankara in 1955 and graduated with a master’s degree in 1978 from the Bosphorus University Faculty of Administrative Sciences and Political Science.

He served as a consul in the Turkish Consulate General in Berlin between 1983 and 1987 and led the EU Department in Ankara between 1993 and 1995.

Between 1995 and 1999, he served as a first counselor in Washington DC before being appointed as Ambassador to Bulgaria from 2005 to 2010.

Gucuk had been Turkey's Ambassador to Switzerland since 2014.