ANKARA — Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced his new cabinet Nov. 24 and appointed Ismet Yilmaz as his new defense minister.
Yilmaz was Turkey’s defense minister between July 2011 and July 2015 when the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its parliamentary elections in June this year for the first time since it came to power in 2002.
During an interim parliament and government after June, Yilmaz was elected parliament speaker.
But AKP ran for snap polls Nov. 1, won 49.5 percent of the national vote and won a mandate to govern in single-party rule until 2019.
Yilmaz, was elected an AKP deputy in June 2011 from the central Anatolian city of Sivas where he was born in 1961.
He graduated first from the Maritime Faculty of Istanbul Technical University in 1982, and from Istanbul University’s Law Faculty in 1987. For 20 years, Yilmaz, who speaks fluent English, worked in public and private business as an engineer and legal adviser/attorney.
In 2002, Yilmaz became Turkey’s maritime undersecretary. He temporarily served as transport minister before the 2007 general elections. Turkish law requires that political ministers be replaced by bureaucrats prior to elections. Later in 2002, Yilmaz was appointed as undersecretary for culture and tourism.
