, Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

) is a Turkish politician and metallurgical engineer. He was the Energy and Natural Resources Minister of Turkey in 2002-2009.

Biography

He graduated from the Department of Metallurgy at the Middle East Technical University

Middle East Technical University

Middle East Technical University is a public technical university located in Ankara, Turkey...

 and worked as a project engineer and group chairman at TUSAŞ Aerospace Industries (TAİ

TAI

Three letter acronym TAI may refer to:* IATA airport code for Ta'izz International Airport* ICAO code for TACA International Airlines* Transports Aériens Intercontinentaux, a now defunct French airline...

). He went on to an academic career as deputy chairman of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK). He served as the general director of the Machines and Chemical Industries Board (MKEK) and Etibank. He was a founding member of the currently ruling AKP

Justice and Development Party (Turkey)

The Justice and Development Party , abbreviated JDP in English and AK PARTİ or AKP in Turkish, is a centre-right political party in Turkey. The party is the largest in Turkey, with 327 members of parliament...

.

Political career

As energy minister as well as the day-to-day running of this important department dealing with Turkey's gas, electricity requirements he has had to deal with a number of issues including:

• Privatisation of Turkey's energy sector
• Enquiries into the corruption allegations against the previous (ANAP
  ANAP
  ANAP may refer to:*National Association of Small Farmers in Cuba*The Motherland Party of Turkey *Alliance Party for the Sake of Azerbaijan , a political party in Azerbaijan*Afghan National Auxiliary Police...
  
  )government concerning the deal it made to purchase natural gas from Russia, the Blue Stream
  Blue Stream
  Blue Stream is a major trans-Black Sea gas pipeline that carries natural gas from Russia into Turkey. The pipeline has been constructed by the Blue Stream Pipeline B.V., the Netherlands based joint venture of Russian Gazprom and Italian Eni. The Blue Stream Pipeline B.V...
  
   agreement.
• Negotiating other natural gas purchases with countries including Iran.
• Plans, sponsored by Güler, to build three nuclear power stations in Turkey.
• Continued oil exploration and investment in hydro-electric power.
• A strategy for the mining of boron
  Boron
  Boron is the chemical element with atomic number 5 and the chemical symbol B. Boron is a metalloid. Because boron is not produced by stellar nucleosynthesis, it is a low-abundance element in both the solar system and the Earth's crust. However, boron is concentrated on Earth by the...
  
  , of which Turkey is the world's largest producer

He is married with two children.