Talip Küçükcan
Talip Küçükcan (born 5 March 1963) is a Turkish professor of sociology and a former politician from the Justice and Development Party (AKP), who has served as a Member of Parliament for Adana since 7 June 2015 until 24 June 2018. He was head of the Turkish Delegation to and the Deputy President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and member of Foreign Relations Committee at the Turkish Parliament between 2015 and 2017. Küçükcan served as the deputy chairman of Political and Legal Affairs of the Justice and Development Party until July 2016. He also  served as member of the OSCE PA of the Turkish delegation. Born in Osmaniye, Küçükcan graduated from Uludağ University Faculty of Theoloy in 1986, received an MA from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and a PhD in ethnic relations from the University of Warwick. He worked as a research fellow at the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations at the University of Warwick between 1997 and 1999. Before moving to Marmara University Faculty of Theology, he was a senior research fellow at the Center for Islamic Studies in Istanbul until 2007. He served as a  senior advisor to the President of Higher Education Council of Turkey between 2009 and 2013. He served as director of Institute for Middle East Studies at Marmara University between 2011-2014. He worked for SETA, foundation for political, economic and social research. He served as the editor in chief of Insight Turkey, a policy journal until 2015. He is appointed as the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on Combating Intolerance and Discrimination against Muslims for 2014 and 2015. He is the President of the Union of Academicians and Writers of the Muslim World, (AY-BİR) a civil  society association based in Istanbul. Küçükcan works on Middle Eastern affairs, Turkey-EU relations, comparative secularism, freedom of religion, migration, state-religion relations and Muslim minorities in Europe. He is a regular commentator on national and international media. He was a regular contributor to TV debate programs Enine Boyuna and Açı on TRT for many years. He speaks fluent English.