THE HAGUE, 03/03/07 - Nebahat Albayrak knows no better than that she has always lived in the Netherlands. She speaks with a Rotterdam accent, but is also proud of her Turkish passport. She rejects doubts about her loyalty to the Netherlands as nonsense, but still, Labour (PvdA) took a risk in putting her forward as Justice State Secretary.
Albayrak was born on 10 April 1968 in Sivas, Turkey. As a two year old, she landed up in Rotterdam, where her father had already gone before she was born to work in construction. She has always lived in the port city and speaks with a slight Rotterdam accent, but she still always maintained links with the Turkish community.
Before becoming an MP, Albayrak was on the board of the National Islamic Women's Organisation (LIV), from 1996 to 1998. During her parliamentary membership, she chaired TRAFIK, a foundation to encourage cultural exchange between the Netherlands and Turkey. She also advised the Anne Fund, which encourages Turkish girls in poor districts to go into secondary vocational education.
After secondary school, Albayrak joined the staff of the National Bureau for Combating Racism (LBR), in 1990. She simultaneously studied international and European law at the University of Leiden and the Turkish capital of Ankara, to 1991. In the two subsequent years, she studied at l'Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris, which she combined with a one-year course at l'Institut d'Etudes Francaises, again in Ankara. There she also had a traineeship at the economic department of the European Commission office.
In 1993, Albayrak began her administrative career as policy staff member for International and European Affairs at the bureau of the Secretary-General of the foreign ministry. In August 1995, she moved to the Integration Policy for Minorities Coordination directorate at the same ministry. From this post, she landed up in the Lower House for PvdA in May 1998.
In 2002, Albayrak was elected by the PvdA MPs to chair their foreign policy cluster. In March 2003, she became chairman of the Lower House standing committee for defence. In 2005, she could have left the House to become PvdA front-runner in Rotterdam in the local elections, but she rejected this offer.
In 2006, Albayrak was put second on the PvdA list of candidates in the general election. It looked as though she might have to withdraw because she did not speak out unequivocally on the Armenian genocide by Turkey around 1915. Two PvdA candidate MPs did have to withdraw, but the press let the matter rest after Albayrak said in Trouw newspaper that "it is for lawyers and historians to decide" whether the event "meets precisely the definition of genocide in international law."
Albayrak cannot easily recognise the genocide, if she would wish to, because this is forbidden in Turkey. She has both a Dutch and Turkish passport. For these reasons, she could wind up with a conflict of loyalties, declares the Party for Freedom (PVV). Lower House Speaker Gerdi Verbeet, a fellow-party member of Albayrak's, found this view unconstitutional. But although a House majority criticised the Speaker about this, nobody agreed with the PVV.
Nonetheless, it is not unthinkable that Albayrak's loyalty will be questioned again in the coming years. As Justice State Secretary, she is after all responsible for aliens policy. Within this, marriage immigration of Turks is a not unimportant component. Albayrak herself is unmarried and childless.
