Turkey’s former EU chief negotiator Beril Dedeoğlu dies at 58

ISTANBUL

Turkey’s Presidential Security and Foreign Policy Committee member Hatice Beril Dedeoğlu died at the age of 58 on March 13.

Dedeoğlu, who was married with two children, had been under treatment for a cerebral hemorrhage at the intensive care unit of Istanbul’s Florence Nightingale Hospital since Feb. 28.

She was appointed Turkey’s minister for European Union affairs during the interim government led by Ahmet Davutoglu between Sep. and Nov. 17 in 2015.

Dedeoglu was born in 1961 in Istanbul. She was graduated from the Istanbul University’s Department of International Relations in the Faculty of Economics.

She had been the head of the department of international relations at Galatasaray University since 2005.

The Turkish presidential spokesman İbrahim Kalın and Turkey’s presidential communications director Fahrettin Altun issued messages of condolence.

“Professor Dr. Beril Dedeoğlu, apart from serving as Minister of EU Affairs […], was an important academician who will be remembered with her works and students,” said İbrahim Kalın.

“I feel deep sorrow that Professor Dr. Beril Dedeoğlu has passed away,” Altun wrote in a Twitter post, adding that she was a hard-working and productive academician.