Chief adviser of presidency appointed to UNESCO post

Gülnur Aybet, a senior adviser to the Turkish Presidency, has been appointed as the permanent representative of Turkey to UNESCO.

The decision of the appointment was published in the Official Gazette on Nov. 20.

Aybet, who has been serving as the chief adviser to the president since October 2016, received her undergraduate degree from Royal Holloway University of London, the U.K., her master's from Southampton University, her second master's degree from King's College, University of London, and her PhD in international relations from the University of Nottingham in England.

Working as a lecturer in the Department of International Relations and Political Science at Kent University in England between 2001-2013, she also held teaching positions at Nottingham University and Bilkent University in Turkey. Aybet, whose areas of expertise are international security, transatlantic relations within the scope of NATO and the EU, and the post-war state and security structure, came back to Turkey from the U.K. in 2013 to establish the department of international relations at Istanbul Özyeğin University.

Managing many research projects for NATO, the Foreign Ministry, the British Academy and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBITAK), she also served as a member of the World Economic Forum (WEF) European Regional Future Council between 2018 and 2019.

After leading the Department of Political Science at Bahçeşehir University between 2014 and 2016, she held the position as a member of the International Relations Faculty of the Yıldız Technical University between 2017 and 2018.

Aybet has given lectures at the National Defense University as a visiting professor since 2018.