Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician. He is the 12th and current President of Turkey, he took office in 2014. Before that, he was the prime minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014. He was chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party from 2001 to 2014. Erdoğan was Mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998.