Officially took office on Monday as head of MIT (National Intelligence Organization) o Ibrahim Kalin according to the Turkish Communications Directorate. “Our president, Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has appointed Mr. Ibrahim Kalin to the presidency of the National Intelligence Agency,” the announcement says.

He himself confirmed his appointment with a post on Twitter, in which he states: “Don’t stop my beautiful country. Keep moving forward…”.

The “right hand” of Tayyip Erdoğan, a man of his absolute trust, will henceforth move the strings of the Turkish secret services.

Kalin takes office succeeding Hakan Fidan, who succeeded Mevlut Cavusoglu at the Foreign Ministry.

The Ministry of Defense is taken over by the Chief of the General Staff, General Yasar Guler, in place of Hulusi Akar, while Ali Gerlikaya was appointed to the Ministry of Interior, succeeding Suleiman Soylu.

“All the president’s people” take key positions in the state apparatus, with the “dolphins” Soylou (who had annoyed the Americans with his occasionally inflammatory statements) and Akar to be crippled.

Ibrahim Kalin’s profile

İbrahim Kalin, who is considered more “moderate” than “hawks” like Soylu, was born on September 15, 1971. Before joining Recep Tayyip Erdogan, he had a distinguished academic career. Since 2014 he has been a representative of the Turkish presidency. In 2018, he was appointed deputy chairman of the Security and Foreign Policy Council of the Turkish Presidency and chief adviser to the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Kalin graduated from Istanbul University and received a Ph.D. from George Washington University in the US, under the supervision of the Islamic philosopher Syed Hussain Nasr. From 2002 to 2005 he was a faculty member in the Department of Religious Studies at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts. He is a founding member and former director (2005–2009) of the SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research based in Ankara, Turkey.

He became the first coordinator of the Prime Minister’s Public Diplomacy Coordination which was established in January 2010. In 2012 he became Deputy Under Secretary to the Prime Minister. On 11 December 2014, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that İbrahim Kalin would be the first official press secretary of the Turkish Presidency. In November 2018, he was appointed as Erdogan’s chief adviser.