Daily News columnist Ümit Enginsoy dead at 52

ISTANBUL

Hürriyet photo

The sudden death of veteran journalist Ümit Enginsoy on the last day of 2012 has left his family and friends in a deep and inconsolable sorrow.

Enginsoy, a Hürriyet Daily News columnist, passed away Dec. 31 in Ankara due to a home accident. He will be laid to rest today after prayers at Kocatepe Mosque at 12 p.m.

Born in 1960, Enginsoy graduated from the Mechanical Engineering Department of Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ) in 1982. He was a particular expert in the fields of diplomacy and defense, with articles published in international media outlets.

Having already contributed to the Daily News with his news articles while living in Washington, Enginsoy joined the paper as a columnist in 2009 after he returned to Turkey from Washington, where he worked as the Washington correspondent for Turkish private broadcaster NTV for 11 years. Enginsoy worked for a number of newspapers and magazines, including Turkish daily Milliyet, American Defense News and Anatolia news agency.

EU Minister Egemen Bağış sent a message of condolence to his family and friends on his Twitter account while Republican People’s Party (CHP) member Osman Korutürk also posted a message on Twitter expressing his sorrow. “‘Ümit Enginsoy, NTV, Washington!’ We lost the owner of this voice, which we had heard on TV for years, in a meaningless accident. Rest in peace,” Korutürk said.

The following are some messages sent by his friends and colleagues:

Deniz Arslan Furniss:

Ümit Enginsoy. You left me in unnamable pain. My dear companion, with wishes that you find some peace now.

Murat Yetkin, editor-in-chief of the Daily News:

Ümit and I have known each other from our mechanical engineering studies at ODTÜ for some 30 years. We both chose our professional way in journalism. We worked together in Turkey’s first news channel, NTV, first, and then at the Hürriyet Daily News. Ümit was a first-class journalist, having particular expertise in the field of defense. Our news desk will also miss him; it was so easy for the editors to say, “Let’s ask Ümit, he’ll find out,” when they wanted to understand a defense story in full, and Ümit never let them down. Not very many people knew that he also played mandolin well enough to perform Greek music onstage in Ankara. We will all miss this gentle friend and lonely soul.

Fehmi Gürdallı, Foreign News Desk Editor of NTV:

We worked with Ümit, the most hard-working person I’ve ever worked with, for 11 years. He was uncomfortable when unable to cover a story and could only sleep with peace when he had covered it in full. Though he seemed distant at first, it did not take long to understand that Ümit was a unique friend as he got to know you. I learned a lot from him. We’ll miss him.