ANKARA, Turkey — The Turkish government named new ministers for defense and science Tuesday.
Fikri Isik, science, industry and technology minister in the previous Cabinet was named as the country’s new defense minister. Isik holds a mathematics degree and can speak intermediate level English and Arabic.
Outgoing Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz was appointed as education minister.
Meanwhile, a former senior procurement official, Faruk Ozlu, was named as science, industry and technology minister. Ozlu was deputy undersecretary at Turkey’s procurement agency, the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries.
A mechanical engineer, Ozlu sat on the boards of state-controlled defense companies Tusas Turkish Aerospace Industries, HEAS and STM.
The Cabinet reshuffle came after Binali Yildirim was elected May 22 as chairman of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party — and became the new prime minister.
Former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu quit amid a series of political rows with the country’s powerful president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The new defense minister, Isik, was coordinating Turkey’s indigenous satellite, satellite launching and test center efforts. Earlier this year he visited the US production unit of Sikorsky and discussed a Sikorsky-run Turkish program for the co-production of 109 utility helicopters for the Turkish military.
“Isik did not have a directly defense-related portfolio except the satellite programs but he was a de facto insider to procurement matters. Now he has officially become the man in charge,” said one procurement bureaucrat.
