Murat Özçelik

Early life and career

Murat Özçelik was born on 1 January 1954 in Ankara and graduated from TED Ankara College before going on to study at the Department of Management at the Middle East Technical University (OTDÜ) Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences. He is married with two children.

Civil service career

Özçelik started working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1983. Between 1990 and 1992, he served as the Cabinet Chief for Turgut Özal, the then-President of Turkey. After serving at numerous other positions, he became the department manager at the Office of Information in 2005, serving concurrently as the foreign affairs deputy spokesperson. On 16 November 2011, he was appointed as the Undersecretary of Public Order and Security. Following a public statement by Özçelik, in which he claimed that he was being pressrued into not doing his job the way he wanted and that he wanted to resign, the government removed him from the position on 17 May 2012. He was subsequently appointed as an advisor at the Foreign Ministry and subsequently retired there.

Diplomatic career

2 January 1997, Özçelik became the Turkish Consul General at Shanghai, a position in which he served until 22 September 1998. On 26 December 2006, he became the Assistant Special Representative to Iraq. He became the Special Representative to Iraq in 2007 and was appointed as the Ambassador to Iraq in 2009. He was removed from this position on 22 October 2011 upon the decision of the government.

Political career

Özçelik was a candidate to become a member of the Party Council of the Republican People's Party (CHP) during the party's 18th Extraordinary Convention held on 7 September 2014. However, he failed to win enough votes to enter the council, resulting in the party leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu appointing him as a personal advisor. It was alleged that Özçelik had stated in a closed meeting that he had voted for the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), though had the support of Kılıçdaroğlu since it was perceived that Kılıçdaroğlu wanted to give the task of forming a strong foreign policy to Özçelik. Numerous members of the party council who won a higher number of votes subsequently resigned from their positions in order to allow Özçelik to take a seat, which he did in October 2014. On 3 November 2014, he was appointed as the Deputy Leader of the CHP responsible for foreign relations. In the June 2015 general election, he was elected as a Member of Parliament for İstanbul's third electoral district. During a Party Council meeting on 24 August 2015, it was alleged that Özçelik had an argument with rival council member Durdu Özbolat, developing into a fight between the two men. This, as well as the fact that Özçelik had not been elected through a nomination primary before the June 2015 election, allegedly contributed to Kılıçdaroğlu's decision to not put him forward as a candidate for the November 2015 general election. Özçelik subsequently resigned his Deputy Leader position, but withdrew his resignation shortly after. He resigned as Deputy Leader and from the Party Council on 11 November 2015.

Controversy

Özçelik has been controversial within the CHP for allegedly being in favour of an independent Kurdistan on the southeastern borders of Turkey. He has also been described as having close sympathies with the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), whom he claimed he, his family and his friends voted for in the June 2015 general election.