Lieutenant General Göksel Kahya

Lt.Gen. Göksel KAHYA was born in Ankara in 1963. After completing his primary and secondary education in Istanbul, he attended Kuleli Military High School and then the Turkish Air Force Academy (Aerospace Engineering) graduating in 1985.

Upon graduation from Turkish Air Force Academy, Lt.Gen. KAHYA completed the Aircraft Maintenance Officer Training course, becoming a Maintenance Officer. He served as Squadron Maintenance Officer in his first assignment. He then graduated from the US Air Force Institute of Technology (Operations Research) and served as Operations Research Officer at the Turkish Air Force Command HQ. In 1995, he attended Staff Officer Training at the Turkish Air Staff College.

Following his graduation from the Air Staff College, he served as an instructor of Military and Social Sciences at the Turkish Air Force Academy from 1997 to 1999.

He served as Operations Planning Officer in the Combined Joint Planning Staff from 1999 to 2003 and as the Head of the Strategic Planning Branch from 2006 to 2008 at SHAPE HQ. During the NATO PE Review in 2003, he participated in the Functional Review Team at SHAPE HQ. In 2005, he graduated from the Turkish Armed Forces College in Istanbul.

He served as a NATO Operations Planning Officer (2003-2005) and NATO Plans and Operations Section Chief (2005-2006) at the Turkish Armed Forces General Staff in Ankara.
From 2008 to 2017 he was;

• Logistics Director at the 2nd Air Force Command in Diyarbakır (2008-2009),
• Plans, Programs and Coordination Department Head, Systems Management Director and Chief of Staff at the Air Logistics Command in Ankara (2009-2016) and,
• Commander of the 1st Air Supply and Maintenance Center in Eskişehir (2016-2017).

From 2017 to 2022 at the Ministry of National Defense of Türkiye he served as;

• Deputy Undersecretary for Operations and Logistics (2017-2018),
• Director General of Defence and Security (2018-2019) and,
• Secretary General of the Ministry (2019-2022).

He was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General (effective as of August 30th) and assumed the position of Turkish Military Representative to NATO.

Lt.Gen. KAHYA is married to Sema KAHYA and has two daughters.

Effective Dates of Promotion
Brigadier General, August 30th, 2010
Major General, July 29th, 2016
Lieutenant General, August 30th, 2022