Cengiz Çandar

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Cengiz Çandar (1948) is a renowned Turkish journalist and a former war correspondent.

1 Early life
2 Career
3 Bibliography
4 Notes
5 References

[edit] Early life

He finished the secondary school at Talas American College in Talas, Kayseri and the high school at Tarsus American College in Tarsus, Mersin. Çandar graduated from Ankara University in 1970 with a Bachelor's degree in political science and international relations.

[edit] Career

He began his career as journalist in 1976 in the newspaper Vatan after living some years in the Middle East and Europe due to his opposition to the regime in Turkey following the military intervention in 1971. An expert for the Middle East (Lebanon and Palestine) and the Balkans (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Çandar worked for the Turkish News Agency and for the leading Turkish newspapers Cumhuriyet, Hürriyet and Güneş as war correspondent. Currently, he is writing for the newspaper Referans.

Çandar served as special advisor to Turkish president Turgut Özal between 1991 and 1993. His interest was drawn to the events during the ethnic unrest in the Balkans between 1993 and 1995. From 1997, Çandar lectured two years long "History and Politics in the Middle East" at the Bilgi University in İstanbul. Between 1999 and 2000, he did research work on "Turkey of the 21st century" in Washington DC, United States. His description of the 1998 events in Turkey as a "post-modern coup" gained notice internationally.

In 2007, Cengiz Çandar wrote an article in the Hürriyet where asserted that the attitude of Turkish authorities is a move to deprive Aghtamar of its Armenian past. In his article he also criticised the changing of the island's name from "Ahtamar" to "Akdamar".^[1] He also took a critical stance towards the re-naming in his article titled "White Vein church and others".^[2]