Erdogan Appoints Key Officials Ahead of Cabinet Meeting inkluding Head of Intelligence Agency.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a series of appointments to a number of important positions in the state apparatus, ahead of the first meeting of his new government later today (Tuesday).

Erdogan appointed the spokesman for the Presidency of the Republic, Ibrahim Kalin, as head of the intelligence service, in the position vacated by appointing the former head of the agency, Hakan Fidan, as foreign minister.

“Don’t stop for my beautiful country, keep going… I would like to express my gratitude to our President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who entrusted me with the mission,” Kalin wrote on his Twitter account after the decision to appoint him, which was issued late Monday night – Tuesday. Head of the Intelligence Service, and I would like to thank everyone who congratulated me on my new position and did not spare their prayers for a strong, secure and independent Turkey… Keep working.

Experience in political work

Ibrahim Kalin has long experience in political work in the ruling Justice and Development Party, and he worked as an advisor to Erdogan on national security affairs in addition to his work as a spokesman for the presidency, and led the file of contacts with the United States, the European Union and Israel, in addition to being a politician and thinker who studied philosophy and history and an academic with a professorship, and issued A number of books and translations.

Kalin is good at playing music and singing, and he has traditional lyrical pieces of music in which he showed his professionalism in playing the traditional Turkish “saz” instrument, and on the eve of his appointment as head of intelligence canceled a concert he was going to play in Istanbul.

Kalin, born in Istanbul on September 15, 1971, originates from a family from the state of Erzurum in northeastern Turkey. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in history from the Faculty of Arts at Istanbul University in 1992, and obtained a master’s degree from a university in Malaysia, then obtained a doctorate in the field of humanities. and Comparative Philosophy from George Washington University for his dissertation on Mulla Sadra’s view of existence and his philosophy of knowledge in 2002.

During his doctoral studies, Calin conducted studies in philosophy, Islamic thought, and Islamic philosophy, and translated into Turkish the book “The Idea of ​​Existence in Islam” by the Japanese researcher Toshihiko Izutsu, the book “The Mercenary Letters” by Moulay Al Arabi Ed Der Kafi, and Khalil Inalcik’s article entitled “Istanbul: The City of Islam.”

He founded and headed the Turkish Center for Politics, Economics and Social Research (SITA) between 2005 and 2009, and in 2007 he published his first book entitled “Islam and the West”, for which he won the “Think Award” from the Turkish Writers Union.

Calen participated in many encyclopedic works such as the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the Encyclopedia of Religion and the Oxford Dictionary of Islam. He published books: “Reason and Virtue” in 2014, “Existence and Understanding” in 2015, and “I and the Other and Beyond: An Introduction to the History of Relations between Islam and the West” in 2016.

He was appointed in 2009 as an advisor to Erdogan (the prime minister at the time) responsible for the foreign policy file, and he held the position of coordinator in the Public Diplomacy Coordination Authority attached to the prime minister when the body was established in January 2010. In 2012, he became an assistant advisor to the prime minister He was appointed Secretary-General of the Presidency of the Republic upon Erdogan’s assumption of the presidency in 2014, and he held the position of official spokesman for the Turkish presidency, and Erdogan granted him the rank of ambassador.

Since 2018, Kalin has held the position of Undersecretary of the Security Council and Foreign Policy in the Turkish Presidency and Senior Adviser to Erdogan.

Clegg as a consultant

On Tuesday, the Turkish Official Gazette published a presidential decree appointing Akif Chagatay Kilig, the former Minister of Youth and Sports, as a senior advisor to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the position vacated by appointing Kalin as head of intelligence.

According to the decree, Erdogan granted Kilic the rank of ambassador.

Clegg was born in 1976 in the German city of Siegen, completed his high school education in Istanbul, and completed his undergraduate studies at the Department of Political Science at the British University of Hertfordshire.

He started political work through the Justice and Development Party in 2003, and worked as an advisor to the party’s president (Erdogan).

In the elections of June 12, 2011, Clegg entered the Turkish Parliament as a deputy for “Justice and Development”, and he was appointed Minister of Youth and Sports in 4 successive governments between 2013 and 2017.

Erdogan delegated the commander of the ground forces of the Turkish army, Musa Oswar, to serve as temporary chief of staff of the army, until the appointment of a chief of staff to succeed Lishar Guler, who was appointed defense minister.

It is expected that Oswar will be formally appointed Chief of Staff at the Military Shura Council meeting held in August each year, to issue new appointments in the leadership of the Turkish army.

Erdogan also appointed the Chairman of the Board of Directors, General Manager of the “Aselsan” Defense Industries Company, Haluk Gurgun, as an advisor for defense industries at the Presidency of the Republic, to succeed Ismail Demir.

Born in Istanbul in 1973, Gorgon assumed the presidency of Aselsan, a leading company in the field of defense industry technology in Turkey, for 6 years. He was born in Istanbul in 1973, and obtained his university qualification and master’s degree in electrical engineering from Yıldız Technical University in Istanbul, and obtained his doctorate from the University of Connecticut in 2005.

Erdogan appointed Daoud Gul as governor of Istanbul, succeeding its former governor, Ali Yerli Kaya, who appointed him Minister of Interior, last Saturday.

Gul had been governor of Gaziantep, southeastern Turkey, since 2018 before he was appointed governor of Istanbul.

At the same time, the ruling Justice and Development Party and its ally, the National Movement Party, nominated the deputy head of the Justice and Development Party, Numan Kurtulmus, as Speaker of Parliament.