Turkey replaces trade minister, forms two new ministries

ANKARA

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has replaced Trade Minister Ruhsar Pekcan by a senior ruling party official, Mehmet Muş, and appointed Derya Yanık as the new minister for family and social services and Vedat Bilgin as the minister for labor and social security after abolishing Family, Labor and Social Services Ministry.

Two separate presidential decrees were published on the Official Gazette early April 21. Three new ministers started their jobs after taking oath at the parliament. Pekcan and Zehra Zümrüt Selçuk, the former minister for family, labor and social services, were in office since mid-2018.

“I want to thank Zehra Zümrüt Selçuk and Ruhsar Pekcan for their services until today. And I wish our new ministers in the cabinet Derya Yanık, Prof. Vedat Bilgin and Mehmet Muş success,” Erdoğan said in an address to his parliamentary group.

“Now, we have entered a new period where we all have to focus on the 2023 elections,” he stated.

Muş was serving as the deputy parliamentary group leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). He has an undergraduate degree in business from Turkey’s Akdeniz University, a postgraduate degree in economics from Washington State University in the U.S., and a doctoral degree in economic history from Turkey’s Marmara University. He has been a member of parliament for the last four terms of the government.

“For those who are doing politics in the ranks of the AK Party should be ready to do any job,” Muş told in his first statement at the parliament. “My objective is to increase the prosperity of 84 million Turks,” he added.

Yanık, a lawyer, has an undergraduate degree in the field of law from Turkey’s Istanbul University. She had served in different positions at the Istanbul Municipality as a member of the municipal assembly. Yanık was selected as a member of the AKP’s central decision-making body at the AKP’s latest general convention that took place in March.

Bilgin has an undergraduate degree in social and administrative sciences from Turkey’s Hacettepe University, a postgraduate degree in urbanization and industrialization, and a doctoral degree in economic sociology from Istanbul University.

Bilgin, a former MP, was a lecturer at several universities including York University in the U.K., Michigan University in the U.S. and Turkey’s Gazi University. He was also a counselor of the presidency.