Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appointed Cevdet Yilmaz to the post of vice president of the republic on Saturday. He previously served as vice chairman of the president's Justice and Development Party. The position of vice president first appeared in 2018 after the change in the form of government in Turkey, and Fuat Oktay was the first to hold this position.

Erdogan also replaced all major ministers in the new cabinet. Only two ministers out of 17 retained their posts. They are Minister of Health Fahrettin Koca and Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy. They have been in these positions since July 2018, TASS reports.

Head of the National Intelligence Organization, Hakan Fidan, will take the post of Foreign Minister in the new government of Turkey, in which Mevlut Cavusoglu has been since 2014, Erdogan said, announcing the new composition of the cabinet of ministers of the republic.

Chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces Yasar Guler took the post of head of the Ministry of Defense. Guler has served as Chief of the General Staff since June 2018. For the past five years, the head of the Republic's Ministry of Defense has been Hulusi Akar, who previously also headed the General Staff.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek became the head of the Turkish Ministry of Finance for the second time. Shimshek in 2007-2009 was the State Minister for Economic Affairs, from 2009 to 2015 he headed the Ministry of Finance. After that, he retired from active managerial work. Before the current elections, Erdogan met with Shimshek several times.

Governor of Istanbul Province Ali Yerlikaya joined the new government of Turkey, taking the post of Minister of Internal Affairs. Yerlikaya has been the governor of Istanbul since October 2018. He replaced Suleiman Soyla as head of the country's Interior Ministry.

ORIENT news