BUCHAREST, January 14th - From the beginning of 2010, the SECI Center has a new director. Gürbüz Bahadir, the representative of the Republic of Turkey, was elected for a two-year mandate as the organization's director, by the members of the Joint Cooperation Committee, the highest decision body of the SECI Center, at its 31st extraordinary meeting, held in September, 2009, in Thessaloniki, Hellenic Republic.
Gürbüz Bahadir has over 20 years experience in law enforcement and international relationships and has the rank of Chief Superintendent.
Gürbüz Bahadir's background is related to document examining within Forensic Lab, as well as public order divisions within different departments and provinces of Turkey, where he had several management positions. An important part of his career was dedicated to foreign relations of the Turkish Police. The SECI Center director also served at the UN missions in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (both SECI countries) and Afghanistan.
"This is an honorable assignment for me. I believe it is becoming more and more important for law enforcement agencies to cooperate, when we compared to the past. International policing activities and multi-organizational cooperation have now reached an upper level then before. There are successful international cooperation organizations and SECI is one of them. This center has been seen to be an effective platform in fighting against trans-border crime in the area.
There always has been here in the Center a good understanding among professionals and a good effort of them through professional ethics. My wish is to continue its success. A professional concern through the job, mutual support among the member countries and observers, good cooperation with the other international institutions will be the priorities, as before. As is known, SECI is about to be changed into SELEC. This will enhance the institutional capacity of our organization and we will try to do our best in this regard", Gürbüz Bahadir stated.
The SECI Regional Center for Combating Trans-border Crime, headquartered in Bucharest, Romania, was launched in 2000, and is a unique operational organization in which police and customs liaison officers from 13 member states (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and Turkey) work together in direct cooperation, coordinate joint investigations and facilitate information exchange.
Besides the member countries, there are 22 observers, countries and organizations: Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, EUBAM, France, Georgia, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Slovakia, Ukraine, UNDP Romania, the United Kingdom, UNMIK, and the United States of America.
Italy and the United States maintain permanent representation at the SECI Center, and Interpol and the World Customs Organization are permanent (non-resident) advisors to the SECI Center.
