ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has named Transport and Communications Minister Binali Yildirim as its sole candidate to take over as party chairman and prime minister at a party congress on Sunday.
Yildirim was the party's consensus candidate to run for leadership at the extraordinary party convention, AKP spokesman Omer Celik said Thursday.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said May 5 that he would quit after a series of political disputes with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's powerful leader and founder of the AKP.
Yildirim said that his priority would be Turkey's fight against the militant Kurdish group, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Yildirim is one of Erdogan's staunchest political allies. In 2015, he briefly served as chief adviser to Erdogan but after the Nov. 1 general elections he joined the Cabinet as transport and communications minister.
Yildirim studied shipbuilding engineering at the Istanbul Technical University. He has postgraduate degree from the World Maritime University in Malmo, Sweden. Between 1994 and 2000 he was the general director of the Istanbul University's ship company, IDO.
Yildirim is known to be the mastermind of Turkey's "megaprojects" including a third bridge on the Bosporus and a third airport for Istanbul.
He is not a stranger to defense procurement. Insiders say he is Erdogan's most-trusted man to overlook Turkey's multibillion-dollar arms programs.
"Despite his civilian portfolio Yildirim has always been the strongman in coordination of defense procurement programs," said one presidential aide.
One of Yildirim's pet projects, among others, is the indigenous regional jet program that will build four types of aircraft on two different jet bodies for dual civilian and military use.
Defense industry sources say with Yildirim becoming the head of the Turkish executive many of Turkey's large-scale indigenous programs would gain pace.
Burak Ege Bekdil was the Turkey correspondent for Defense News.
