Turkey names new premier
Binali Yildirim as its chairman Sunday, meaning he will automatically become prime minister.
Yildirim will replace Ahmet Davutoglu as the president seeks to concentrate more power in the presidential office.
"We will work in total harmony with all our party comrades at all levels, beginning with our founding president and leader," said Yildirim after being named party head, referring to Erdogan.
The 60-year-old Yildirim is seen as one of Erdogan's closest longtime confidants and has served an almost unbroken stint from 2002 to 2013 as transport minister and then again from 2015.
They are both strongly opposed to resuming talks with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Kurdish militant group that has claimed responsibility for several attacks across Turkey since a two-year-long cease-fire collapsed in 2015.
The new prime minister's main task, observers say, will be to pilot a change in the constitution to transform Turkey from a parliamentary to a presidential system.
"And now it's time for the presidential system," Yildirim said earlier in May just after Davutoglu's resignation, according to Arab News.
Another critical task facing the new prime minister will be to negotiate with the European Union on a crunch visa deal, a key plank of an accord aimed at easing the EU's migrant crisis.
The visa deal has been in jeopardy over Ankara's reluctance to alter its counter-terror laws, a key requirement of the agreement, prompting Erdogan to make a series of critical statements about the EU in recent weeks.
Yildirim vowed Thursday to "rid Turkey of the calamity of terrorism."
