Tevfik Ahmet Özal (born 3 December 1955) is a Turkish politician, the son of former Turkish President and Prime Minister Turgut Özal and a member of the Özal family. He has been an MP, and co-founded the Uzan Group and later the Özal Group.

Career

After graduating from the

North Carolina State University North Carolina State University (NC State, North Carolina State, NC State University, or NCSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Founded in 1887 and p ...

he worked at the

International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution funded by 191 member countries, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It is regarded as the global lender of las ...

and in international banking from 1979 to 1988. In 1989 he co-founded (with Cem Uzan) Turkey's first private television station, "Magic Box" (now Star TV). Özal was elected to the

Grand National Assembly of Turkey The Grand National Assembly of Turkey ( ), usually referred to simply as the GNAT or TBMM, also referred to as , in Turkish, is the Unicameralism, unicameral Turkey, Turkish legislature. It is the sole body given the legislative prerogatives by ...

in 1999 as an independent; he joined the Motherland Party in 2002, and was the party's candidate for

Mayor of Istanbul The mayor of Istanbul is the head of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality. The mayor is elected popularly every five years. Nuri Aslan has served as interim mayor of Istanbul since 26 March 2025. This article covers the Ottoman Empire to the ...

in the March 2009 local elections (gaining less than 1% of the vote). Later, he would become Deputy Chairman of the Democratic Party, after the Motherland Party merged with it in October 2009. Since taking public office, he has adamantly stated that he feels his late father, former Turkish President and Prime Minister Turgut Özal, was assassinated. He has suggested that the

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might have been responsible, because of Turgut's efforts to unite the Turkic republics of Central Asia. In 2013 Özal said that several months before the 1988 assassination attempt on Turgut, Turgut had survived a plane incident in which his official plane lost an engine and crash-landed (Ahmet was on board at the time). The manufacturer later reported a 95% probability that the plane would explode under the circumstances present. He is on the Board of Trustees of Turgut Özal University, named after his father. Turgut Özal University
Board Of Trustees
, accessed 2 July 2013 On 23 July 2016, in the course of the

2016 Turkish purges Since 2016, the Government of Turkey, government of Turkey has conducted a series of purges, enabled by a Martial law and state of emergency in Turkey, state of emergency in reaction to the 2016 Turkish coup attempt, failed coup attempt on 15 Ju ...

, the university was shut down by the Turkish government among othe
15 universities
due to its alleged ties with the

Gülen movement The Gülen movement () or Hizmet movement () is an Islamist fraternal movement. It is a sub-sect of Sunni Islam based on a Nursian theological perspective as reflected in Fethullah Gülen's religious teachings. It is referred to by its membe ...

References

Deputies of Malatya Democrat Party (Turkey, current) politicians Motherland Party (Turkey) politicians Living people Ahmet Children of presidents of Turkey Children of prime ministers of Turkey 1955 births North Carolina State University alumni Members of the 21st Parliament of Turkey Turkish people of Kurdish descent {{Turkey-politician-stub