Thursday, July 21, 2011

Turkey Defense Minister May Raise Prominence of Naval Programs

ANKARA - Turkey's naval programs are expected to gain prominence after the appointment of a maritime expert as the country's new defense minister, procurement officials said.
There may also be a reshuffle of personnel at the procurement office, excluding the top official, Murad Bayar, as well as a flurry of new procurement rules. But they said the government's doctrinal approach in favor of national/indigenous programs would progress on the same line regardless of a change at the Cabinet level.
The mildly Islamist government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last month appointed Ismet Yilmaz as new defense minister after his party's third consecutive election victory June 12. Yilmaz replaced Vecdi Gonul, defense minister since 2002.
"The new minister may introduce some new procurement rules and order a personnel reshuffle, but the top bureaucracy will remain intact, and so will the government policy to go local as much as possible in procurement programs," a senior government official familiar with defense procurement said.
Yilmaz, born in 1961, graduated from the Maritime Academy in 1982 and from Istanbul University's Law Faculty in 1987. He holds master'sdegrees in maritime and law from Swedish and Turkish universities, and a doctorate in private law from Marmara University in Istanbul.
Yilmaz worked for public and private sectors for 20 years as engineer and lawyer. In 2002, he became the undersecretary for the government's Maritime Undersectariat. In government service, he also worked as deputy board director for the national telecom company, and as caretaker transport minister before the 2007 parliamentary elections. In November 2007, Yilmaz was appointed as undersecretary for the culture ministry.

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