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Mehmet Münir Ertegün (1883 Istanbul – 11 November 1944 Washington, D.C.) was a Turkish politician and diplomat of late Ottoman Empire and Turkish Republican time. Ertegün was the father of Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegün, brothers who founded Atlantic Records and iconic figures of the American Music Industry.

Born to a civil servant father, Mehmet Cemil Bey, and a mother who was a daughter of Sufi shaykh Ayşe Hamide Hanım, he studied law at Istanbul University and graduated in 1908. He was a close figure and aide to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in the Turkish Independence War and a counselor in law to the Turkish committee in the Treaty of Lausanne.

After the foundation and the recognition of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, he was appointed in 1934 as the first ambassador of the Republic of Turkey to the United States in Washington, D.C. and held the post until he died there in 1944. His body was carried back to Istanbul by the USS Missouri and buried in the garden of Sufi Tekke, Özbekler Tekkesi in Sultantepe, Üsküdar next to his shaykh grandfather Şeyh İbrahim Edhem Efendi, who was once the head of the Tekke.

[edit] Trivia

When Münir Ertegün died and there was no mosque in Washington D.C. to hold his funeral in, the Islamic Center of Washington was built as a result.

[edit] See also

• List of Turkish diplomats

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