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Turkey published Presidential Circular 2026/9 in the Official Gazette on 18 August 2026, directing every public institution to carry out the duties falling to it under the Turkiye Artificial Intelligence Action Plan 2026-2030
This is a coordination instrument, not a rulebook. It creates no duty for any company and names no sanction. What it does is place the Action Plan on every public institution's desk and ask that support for its implementation be provided diligently, which is how Turkish AI policy has been sequenced before: the 2021 circular did the same job for the 2021-2025 strategy.
Bottom line: A Presidential Circular, signed 17 August 2026 and gazetted the following day. It directs public institutions and organisations to carry out the duties and responsibilities falling to them under the Turkiye Artificial Intelligence Action Plan 2026-2030, and to provide support during its implementation.
Who this affects: Turkish public institutions and organisations in the first instance. Private-sector readers are addressed only indirectly: the Plan was prepared with private sector, university and civil-society input, and the circular contemplates spreading AI applications in both public and private sectors.
What to do: If you deal with Turkish public bodies, expect the Action Plan to be cited as the reference framework for AI procurement and projects. The document itself directs readers to the Ministry of Industry and Technology site at www.sanayi.gov.tr for the Plan.
Primary sources: Cumhurbaskanligi Genelgesi 2026/9, Resmi Gazete 18 August 2026 (PDF, Turkish) · Resmi Gazete index for 18 August 2026
- Editorial Note
- Informational analysis for working professionals, not legal advice. Confirm how any rule applies to your situation with qualified counsel.
- Instrument (EN)
- Presidential Circular 2026/9 concerning the Turkiye Artificial Intelligence Action Plan 2026-2030. Gazette index title: Turkiye Yapay Zeka Eylem Plani (2026-2030) ile Ilgili 2026/9 Sayili Cumhurbaskanligi Genelgesi
- Authority
- Presidency of the Republic of Turkiye. Signed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
- Jurisdiction
- Turkiye
- Event type
- Presidential circular addressed to public administration. Not a law, not a regulation, and it creates no third-party obligation
- Date of legal event
- Signed 17 August 2026. Published in Resmi Gazete number 33344 of Tuesday 18 August 2026
- Predecessor
- The circular records that Genelge 2021/18, published in Resmi Gazete number 31574 of 20 August 2021, brought the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2021-2025 into force, and states that its implementation was carried out and significant gains obtained
- Who prepared the Plan
- Prepared under the coordination of the Ministry of Industry and Technology, in cooperation with the public sector, the private sector, universities and civil society organisations
- Stated principles
- Human-centricity, trustworthiness, ethical responsibility, digital sovereignty and sustainable development. The Plan is built on the core principles rendered in the circular as Fark Et, Istifade Et, Uret ve Yonet
- Where the Plan is published
- The circular states the Plan will be published on the Ministry of Industry and Technology official internet address, www.sanayi.gov.tr
- Sanction
- None. The circular requests that the necessary action be taken; it specifies no penalty and no enforcement mechanism
- Primary source
- https://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/eskiler/2026/08/20260818-8.pdf
What the circular actually directs
The operative paragraph is short and it is addressed to the state, not to industry. It asks that all public institutions and organisations carry out with care the duties and responsibilities falling to them within the scope of the Turkiye Artificial Intelligence Action Plan 2026-2030, and that every kind of support and assistance needed during the implementation process be provided diligently by all public institutions and organisations.
That is the whole of the binding content, and it is a coordination instruction. No company acquires an obligation from this document, no conduct becomes unlawful, and no authority acquires a new power. Reporting it as Turkey regulating AI would be wrong.
The circular also fixes where the Plan itself lives: the Ministry of Industry and Technology official site. The Plan is the substantive document; the circular is the instrument that puts it on the administration's agenda.
The sequencing, which is the informative part
The circular states its own lineage. Circular 2021/18, published in the Official Gazette of 20 August 2021, number 31574, brought the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2021-2025 into force. The circular records that this strategy was implemented and that significant gains were obtained.
It then gives the reason for a new plan in its own terms: a new period in which artificial intelligence is reshaping the global economy, public services, production models and social structures, requiring an updated national vision oriented to technological sovereignty, competitiveness, data-driven development, trustworthy AI and sustainable digital transformation.
So Turkey has now used the same instrument twice, five years apart, to move from strategy to action plan. For anyone tracking national AI policy, the circular is the reliable date anchor: it is where the plan acquires an official publication date and an addressee.
What the Plan is said to contain
The circular summarises rather than reproduces. It says the Plan was prepared under the coordination of the Ministry of Industry and Technology together with the public sector, the private sector, universities and civil society organisations, and that it envisages all stakeholders acting in coordination in line with human-centricity, trustworthiness, ethical responsibility, digital sovereignty and sustainable development.
The stated aims are raising awareness of artificial intelligence, training qualified human resources, strengthening data and computing infrastructure, spreading AI applications in the public and private sectors, and forming an internationally competitive and trustworthy AI ecosystem. The circular describes the Plan as a road map for the path running from data to value and from knowledge to production.
We are reporting the circular's characterisation of the Plan, not the Plan. The Plan is a separate document that we have not opened, and any obligation-like detail will be in it rather than here.
What we did not verify
Opened and read in full: the one-page circular as published in the Official Gazette, and the Gazette index for 18 August 2026 which carries the instrument's formal title. Everything attributed to the circular in this article was read from that page.
A retrieval note, because it affects how this was checked. The gazette PDF is a scanned image: it is 213KB but yields only 214 characters of extractable text, all of it the header block. The operative paragraphs are not machine-readable, and no OCR tool is available on this machine, so the body was rendered to an image and read visually. Turkish text quoted here is therefore a careful transcription rather than a byte-verified extraction, and we have limited direct quotation accordingly.
Not opened: the Turkiye Artificial Intelligence Action Plan 2026-2030 itself, Circular 2021/18, or the National AI Strategy 2021-2025. Every statement about the Plan's contents is the circular's summary of it.
We refuse to claim: that this creates any obligation for a company, that it carries a penalty, or that it is legislation. We do not state what the Action Plan requires, because we have not read the Action Plan.
Treat this as a date anchor and a signal of where Turkish AI policy will be coordinated from, not as a regulatory event. The circular binds the administration to implement a plan; it leaves the private sector untouched. The substantive document is the Action Plan on the Ministry of Industry and Technology site, and that is what to read if you need to know what Turkey intends to do between now and 2030.
Source File
https://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/eskiler/2026/08/20260818-8.pdf
Open the gazette PDF for 18 August 2026 and confirm four things on the single page. The header reads 18 Agustos 2026 SALI, Resmi Gazete, Sayi 33344. The subject line gives the Turkiye Yapay Zeka Eylem Plani for 2026-2030 and the circular number 2026/9. The body cites the earlier circular 2021/18 of 20/8/2021 in gazette number 31574. The signature block is dated 17 Agustos 2026 over the name of the President. Note that the page is a scanned image, so a text extractor returns only the header.
Fark Et, Istifade Et, Uret ve Yonet ยท the core principles on which the circular says the Action Plan is built, Cumhurbaskanligi Genelgesi 2026/9, transcribed from the gazette image
FAQ
Does this circular regulate AI companies in Turkey?
No. It is addressed to public institutions and organisations and asks them to carry out their duties under the Action Plan and to support its implementation. It creates no obligation for private companies and specifies no penalty.
Is the Action Plan itself published in the Official Gazette?
No. The circular states that the Plan will be published on the official internet address of the Ministry of Industry and Technology. What appears in the Gazette is the circular that directs public bodies to implement it.
How does this relate to Turkey's earlier AI strategy?
The circular records that Circular 2021/18, gazetted on 20 August 2021 in issue 31574, brought the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2021-2025 into force, that it was implemented and that significant gains were obtained. The 2026-2030 Action Plan is presented as the update to that vision.
Which ministry owns this?
The Ministry of Industry and Technology. The circular says the Plan was prepared under its coordination with the public sector, private sector, universities and civil society organisations, and directs readers to its website for the Plan.
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