President Erdoğan will chair Cabinet meeting next Monday

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has ended the ongoing speculation by announcing that he will preside over a Cabinet meeting on Jan. 19, 2015. However, the agenda of the first cabinet meeting has continued to arouse curiosity in the political circles of Ankara. According to sources from the Presidential Palace, details of the cooperation between the government and the presidency, and the necessary steps that need to be taken to maintain harmony between the prime minister and the president is expected to be outlined in the first Cabinet meeting that will be chaired by President Erdoğan on Monday next week. Sources also indicate that there are four main areas in which the Presidency would like to work in harmony, namely: national security, foreign policy, economy and information technologies.

Under the new scheme within the Presidency, 12 new desks will be founded to develop policies and strategies, take a role in coordinating state bodies and consulting the government. Accordingly, while the security policies desk will oversee the Kurdish reconciliation process and the conflict against Gülenists who are alleged to have infiltrated state institutions and other security issues, the strategy desk will be in charge of ties with the government and the remaining presidencies will be reserved for foreign relations, social and cultural work, economy monitoring and coordination, information technologies, corporate communications and public relations. In the cabinet meeting it is expected that President Erdoğan will emphasize the importance of coordinating the security policies desk with the relevant ministers, due to the sensitivity of the issues that fall within the scope of their responsibility. Despite this, there has been no official announcement about how often President Erdoğan will head the Cabinet, although sources from the Presidential Place expect that President Erdoğan is likely to chair Cabinet meetings bimonthly to exchange views with ministers.