Erdoğan's daughter, defense industrialist get married

ISTANBUL

AA photo

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s daughter Sümeyye Erdoğan and Selçuk Bayraktar, the defense sector industrialist who develops unmanned air vehicles with his father, Özdemir Bayraktar, tied the knot on May 14 at a ceremony in the Küçükçekmece district of Istanbul.

Former President Abdullah Gül and outgoing Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu were the witnesses at the wedding, which was officiated by Mayor Kadir Topbaş.

Turkish Parliamentary Speaker İsmail Kahraman, Chief of Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar, Chairman Bakir Izetbegovic of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Presidential Council, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Shariff, former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama were the other witnesses.

A large crowd, which included representatives of several countries, Turkish ministers, diplomatic envoys, businesspeople and artists gathered at the Yahya Kemal Bayatlı Performing Arts Center for the wedding.

The wedding began with verses from the Quran.

A video depicting the lives of the bride and the groom was displayed at the ceremony.

The couple became engaged at a low-key gathering at a mansion on March 20, having been forced to postpone previous plans to mark the engagement because the groom’s father suffered a serious heart attack on March 12.

The president’s daughter studied sociology and politics at Indiana University in the United States before earning a master’s degree from the London School of Economics.

Bayraktar graduated from Istanbul Technical University in 2002. He holds master’s degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also holds a PhD from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Baykar, the company run by Selçuk Bayraktar, Özdemir Bayraktar and his two brothers, has been developing drones for both the Turkish military and other countries.