Mehmet Hilmi Güler (born 15 July 1946) is a Turkish politician and metallurgical engineer. He was the Energy and Natural Resources Minister of Turkey in 2002–2009. He served as the general director of the Machines and Chemical Industries Board (

MKEK The Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation ( or MKE for short), established in 1950, is a reorganization of government-controlled group of factories in Turkey that supplied the Turkish Armed Forces with military products. History Its root ...

) and Etibank. He was a founding member of the currently ruling AKP.

Education

Güler graduated from the Department of Metallurgy at the

Middle East Technical University Middle East Technical University (commonly referred to as METU; in Turkish language, Turkish, ''Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi'', ODTÜ) is a prestigious public university, public Institute of technology, technical university located in Ankara, ...

and worked as a project engineer and group chairman at TUSAŞ Aerospace Industries ( TAİ). He went on to an academic career as deputy chairman of the

Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey The Scientific and Technological Research Institution of Turkey (, TÜBİTAK) is a national agency of Turkey whose stated goal is to develop "science, technology and innovation" (STI) policies, support and conduct research and development, and to ...

(TÜBİTAK).

Political career

As energy minister as well as the day-to-day running of this important department dealing with Turkey's gas, electricity requirements he has had to deal with a number of issues including: * Privatisation of Turkey's energy sector * Enquiries into the corruption allegations against the previous ( ANAP) government concerning the deal it made to purchase natural gas from Russia, the

Blue Stream Blue Stream is a major trans-Black Sea gas Pipeline transport, pipeline that carries Natural gas in Turkey, natural gas to Turkey from Natural gas in Russia, Russia. The pipeline has been constructed by the Blue Stream Pipeline B.V., the Netherl ...

agreement. * Negotiating other natural gas purchases with countries including Iran. * Plans, sponsored by Güler, to build three nuclear power stations in Turkey. * Continued oil exploration and investment in hydro-electric power. * A strategy for the mining of

boron Boron is a chemical element; it has symbol B and atomic number 5. In its crystalline form it is a brittle, dark, lustrous metalloid; in its amorphous form it is a brown powder. As the lightest element of the boron group it has three ...

, of which Turkey is the world's largest producer

Personal life

He is married and has two children.

References

''Biography of Mehmet Hilmi Güler'' at Who is who database

External links

* Living people 1946 births Justice and Development Party (Turkey) politicians Government ministers of Turkey Ministers of energy and natural resources of Turkey Members of the 23rd Parliament of Turkey Members of the 22nd Parliament of Turkey Members of the 60th government of Turkey {{Turkey-politician-stub Middle East Technical University alumni