TURKEY - Profile - Enis Oksuz.

The Minister of Transport and Communications, Oksuz is one of the most prominent members of the MHP leadership. On April 17, 2000, his ministry failed to sell a fourth licence to operate a mobile telephone network for 25 years, after all four competing consortia withdrew from the public auction without making a bid. The ministry's starting price of $2,525m was too high for a market already dominated by two operators. Oksuz left the door open for a new round of bidding. He told a news conference: "We are not under obligation to do it, but I am not saying we will not do it".

Telecom Italia and its local partner Turkiye Is Bankasi (a leading bank with diverse industrial holdings) had undermined this auction on April 12 by bidding $2,525m for the right to operate Turkey's third mobile telephone company for 25 years. In so doing, they made the fourth licence unbuyable, because Oksus' ministry had said the starting price for it was to be the same as the one bid for the third licence. Turkey's first mobile telephone licence is held by Turkcell, a joint venture of Finland's Sonera and the Turkish Cukurova group. The second is held by Telsim, owned by Rumeli Holding and Motorola of the US. Together the two serve about 7m customers, with Turkcell being the market leader. The state-owned Turkish Telecom, earmarked for privatisation this year, has a "sleeping" cellular licence which intends to activate after its IPO.