President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appointed Ümit Önal as head of Türkiye’s Cybersecurity Directorate, according to a decree published in the Official Gazette on Thursday.
The same decree also named Muhammed Hüseyin Karabul as deputy head of the State Archives Directorate and Davut Öksüz as prosecutor at the Court of Accounts.
In a separate decision published in the Official Gazette, the Turkish Parliament announced the appointment of five new members to the Court of Accounts following elections held during its 10th session on Oct. 22, 2025.
Eşref Edip Çiçekli and Necati Küçükaydın were selected from the Court of Accounts’ professional staff quota, while Coşkun Çekiciler, İsmail Çobanoğlu, and Adnan Güran were appointed from the Treasury and Finance Ministry’s professional staff quota.
Önal is a Turkish business executive with over two decades of experience in media, communications, and technology. He began his career at Turkuvaz Media Group, where he held senior roles, including general manager of ATV and head of advertising. He later served as general manager and board member at Digitürk before joining Türk Telekom in 2016, eventually becoming its CEO in 2019 and later a board member.
Türkiye established a new agency to tackle cyber threats, identify strategies and goals, prepare action plans and ensure the coordination of activities in this field.
The Cybersecurity Directorate, established by a presidential decree, will implement decisions of the new Cybersecurity Board, which will be chaired by President Erdoğan and will include ministries such as Interior, Justice, National Defense, Transport and Infrastructure, and Industry and Technology.
It will determine policies, strategies and targets to ensure cybersecurity, prepare action plans, carry out projects to support cybersecurity and information security and work to boost cooperation between the public, private sector and universities in this field.
A road map for the improvement of cybersecurity and protection of the country’s information infrastructures was announced last year by the government.
