Erdoğan’s press aide assigned as Turkey’s envoy to the Vatican

ANKARA

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s press advisor Lütfullah Göktaş has been appointed as Turkey’s new ambassador to the Vatican. The appointment was announced in the Official Gazette on Jan. 24.

Turkey’s former envoy to the Vatican was again a non-career ambassador, Theologian Prof. Mehmet Paçacı.

Göktaş is also a theologian and a historian of religions who worked as a journalist in Italy before he had been assigned as Erdoğan’s press officer in 2011. Göktaş was born in 1963 and graduated from Marmara University’s Faculty of Theology.

Göktaş received his master’s degree in the history of religions at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He was the correspondent of NTV news broadcaster in Rome between 1998 and 2011.