On July 17, Vladimir Putin signed a decree appointing Turko Daudov, Ramzan Kadyrov's adviser on interaction with Arab and Muslim countries, as the permanent representative of the Russian Federation to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Previously, this post was held by the former head of Dagestan, Ramazan Abdulatipov.
48-year-old Turko Daudov graduated from Pyatigorsk State University in 2020, where he received a master's degree in international relations, but before that he had already distinguished himself in the diplomatic field. In the 2000s, he lived in Kuwait, worked in the local Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs of this state. Then he was a representative of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Chechnya in the Persian Gulf countries, general representative of the Coordination Center of Muslims of the North Caucasus and representative of the head of Chechnya in the Persian Gulf countries.
Since June 2014, he has worked as the deputy mufti of Chechnya for external relations and simultaneously held the post of vice president and special representative of the Akhmat Kadyrov Foundation in Syria. Turko Daudov is a loyal Kadyrovite. In February 2022, he took part in the flash mob “I am Kadyrov’s foot soldier”, launched on Instagram by the assistant to the head of Chechnya, Umar Daudov. As part of this campaign, hundreds of officials published joint photos with Kadyrov or, in the absence of such, video footage with the leader of Chechnya. The flash mob was organized in response to an online petition by politician Ilya Yashin demanding Kadyrov’s resignation. Six months later, Turko Daudov called his boss “a symbol of the fight against the ill-wishers of Islam”. In November, he met in Belgrade with Aleksandar Vucic, the president of Serbia, the only European country besides Belarus that refuses to join the EU sanctions against Russia. Kadyrov, by the way, is popular there – streets and other objects are named after his father. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (formerly called the Organization of the Islamic Conference) is the second largest international association after the UN. The OIC includes 57 countries, and Russia has observer status. Its headquarters are in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.