Davutoğlu keeps Erdoğan’s Cabinet with few changes

No time has been wasted in the formation of Turkey’s new government with PM Ahmet Davutoğlu at the helm. The newly-minted Cabinet, announced less than 24 hours after the handover ceremony at the presidency, contains only four new names. Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has replaced Davutoğlu in the FM seat

With incoming Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu at the helm, Turkey’s newly-minted Cabinet, announced on Aug. 29, represents only a small variation on the previous one. The names in the new Cabinet were announced just one day after new President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan officially took office at the presidential Çankaya Palace.

Erdoğan met Davutoğlu late on Aug. 28 and tasked him with forming a Council of Ministers, after which he introduced his official Cabinet list to President Erdoğan before noon on Aug. 29, announcing it to the public a few hours later. Shortly after, the presidential press office announced that Erdoğan had approved the new government.

Only four new names have been introduced in the new government, which will have to deal with an intense agenda for little over nine months in the run up to the parliamentary elections of June 2015, with the economic administration remaining untouched.

The Foreign Ministry seat left vacant by Davutoğlu’s nomination as prime minister has been handed to former EU Affairs Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. For his part, Çavuşoğlu was replaced in the EU Ministry by Volkan Bozkır, the chair of Parliament’s Foreign Relations Commission.

Deputy Prime Ministers Beşir Atalay and Emrullah İşler have been replaced by Yalçın Akdoğan and Numan Kurtulmuş. Atalay has been a key...