Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu

Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu MP
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Incumbent
Assumed office 24 November 2015
Prime Minister	Ahmet Davutoğlu
Preceded by	Feridun Sinirlioğlu
In office 29 August 2014 – 28 August 2015
Prime Minister	Ahmet Davutoğlu
Preceded by	Ahmet Davutoğlu
Succeeded by	Feridun Sinirlioğlu
Minister of European Union Affairs
In office 25 December 2013 – 29 August 2014
Prime Minister	Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Preceded by	Egemen Bağış
Succeeded by	Volkan Bozkır
Chief Negotiator for Turkish Accession to the European Union
In office 25 December 2013 – 29 August 2014
Prime Minister	Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Preceded by	Egemen Bağış
Succeeded by	Volkan Bozkır
President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
In office 25 January 2010 – 25 January 2012
Preceded by	Lluís Maria de Puig
Succeeded by	Jean-Claude Mignon
Member of the Grand National Assembly
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 November 2015
Constituency	Antalya (Nov 2015)
In office 3 November 2002 – 7 June 2015
Constituency	Antalya (2002, 2007, 2011)
Personal details
Born	5 February 1968 Alanya, Turkey
Political party	Justice and Development Party
Alma mater	Ankara University Long Island University Bilkent University
Religion	Islam

Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu (born 5 February 1968) is a Turkish politician who has been Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey since 24 November 2015;^[1] previously he was Minister of Foreign Affairs from August 2014 to August 2015.^[2] He is also a member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, where he represents Antalya Province. First elected to Parliament in the 2002 general election, he is a founding member of the Justice and Development Party (AKP).^[3][4] He was the president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from 2010 to 2012.

Early life

Born at Alanya, Çavuşoğlu graduated from Ankara University in 1988 where he studied international relations. He then received a masters in economics from Long Island University in New York, and studied for his doctorate at Bilkent University and was a research fellow at London School of Economics, where he was for a time president of the Turkish Society. He is married with one child.^[3]

While serving in parliament, he has chaired the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population. In November 2009, he met the foreign minister of Russia, Sergey Lavrov, in the context of a report that the Assembly is preparing on the Soviet famine of 1932–1933.^[5]

Council of Europe

Çavuşoğlu joined the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in 2003 and soon after was named the head of the Turkish delegation and a vice-president of the Assembly. During the January 2010 session of the Assembly, he was nominated and elected on 25 January 2010 to replace outgoing President Lluís Maria De Puig of Spain.^[6] In the October reshuffle, this was the reason given for why he did not receive extra responsibilities in Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's government.^[7][8][9] His candidacy for this post was supported by all of Turkey's main parties. He became president just months before Turkey took up the chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (November 2010) and at the same time that there was a Turkish president of the Congress of the Council of Europe.^[10] In 2012, he was succeeded by France's Jean-Claude Mignon.

2014 Turkish local elections

Çavuşoğlu was criticized by Hurriyet, because of his intervention in the municipality election in Antalya that took place on 30 March 2014. When the opposing party candidate Mustafa Akaydin was ahead of the ruling party candidate, he visited the courthouse with his supporters and interrupted the counting process.^[11] After his interruption, counting of votes was stopped. It was claimed that not already counted votes are from suburbs where the opposing party has more supporters.^[12]

References

1. "Turkish PM Davutoğlu forms 64th government of Turkey". Hürriyet Daily News. 24 November 2015. Retrieved 24 November 2015.
2. "Davutoğlu announces new Turkish interim government dominated by AK Party loyalists". Today's Zaman. 28 August 2015. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
3. "Who is Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu?". Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. 2009. Retrieved 10 January 2010.
4. "PACE Head Presses For Political Reforms in Armenia". RFE/RL. 2010. Retrieved 12 May 2010.
5. "Russia to cooperate with PACE on famine report". The Voice of Russia. 25 November 2009. Retrieved 10 January 2010.
6. Sariişik, Dönduü (25 January 2010). "Turkish parliamentarian elected president of PACE". Hürriyet. Retrieved 26 January 2010.
7. "AK Party to revive its reformist spirit". Today's Zaman. 9 October 2009. Retrieved 10 January 2010.
8. "Mr Mevlüt ÇAVUŞOĞLU". Council of Europe. 2009. Retrieved 10 January 2010.
9. "Prime Minister Erdogan's Speech at the AK Congress". AK Party. 3 October 2009. Retrieved 10 January 2010.
10. "Newspot no.99 (October 2009)" (PDF). Prime Minister's Office. 1 October 2009. Retrieved 10 January 2010.
11. "Antalya'da kavga cikti.". Hurriyet. 30 March 2014. Retrieved 30 March 2014.
12. "0 Mart yerel seçimleri: AKP’nin sandık sandık, hile, baskı ve usulsüzlükleri". sendika.org. 30 March 2014. Retrieved 30 March 2014.

External links

• Official homepage
• Council of Europe Profile (PDF)