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As Turkey’s post-election dust is settling down, the international community has turned its attention to two key appointments announced by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who on May 28 won his 17th election victory in 21 years, and entered his third decade in power.
Turkey’s two key appointments are new foreign minister and former intelligence chief, Hakan Fidan; and the newly-appointed intelligence chief, Ibrahim Kalın, also an Erdoğan confidant.
Both men have interesting and impressive careers. How both of them have become the only two people who make policy and share power with Erdoğan is illuminating, especially where their careers intersected under the president.
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The enigmatic Hakan Fidan
Fidan, born in Ankara in 1968, served the Turkish Army’s Land Forces Command as a non-commissioned officer. He worked at NATO’s Rapid Reaction Force in Germany. His thesis was titled, “A Comparison of the UK, US and Turkish Intelligence Agencies.” After he abruptly quit his army career in 2001, he worked at the Australian Embassy in Ankara as a political and economic analyst — a curious entry in his bio. It is not usual in Turkey, however, that a non-commissioned officer joins an embassy with almost no political and military ties with Turkey.
Continue here: Gatestone Institute
