Thorium and Türkiye's future

Prof. Dr. Engin Arık, who said that thorium mines would be a solution to our country's energy problem and carried out studies on this subject, lost her life along with her team in the plane crash that occurred in Isparta on November 30, 2007.

On the anniversary of Engin Arık's death, her student Baki Akkuş, the President of the Turkish Physical Society, made some statements.

Baki Akkuş, stating that he had bought a plane ticket for a few days later due to his work, said, "The known incident happened. I cannot call it an accident. The plane went down".

According to official records, the cause of Prof. Dr. Engin Arık's death is the plane crash that occurred near Isparta on November 30, 2007, but conspiracy theories are being put forward on this matter. Engin Arık and her team had important studies on thorium mines and Türkiye's nuclear energy potential, and for this reason, it is thought that they became targets.

Although this situation has led to claims and conspiracy theories being put forward in public opinion and on various platforms that the crash may actually have been an assassination or sabotage, these claims have not been officially proven.

Prof. Dr. Engin Arık advocated for Türkiye to become a full member of CERN and for the country to benefit from these studies. She also carried out work on this matter in Türkiye and even pioneered the establishment of an institution called TARLA (The Turkish Accelerator and Radiation Laboratory).

Prof. Dr. Engin Arık is one of the people who, starting from 1991, laid the foundation, together with figures such as Prof. Dr. Asım Barut and Prof. Dr. Saleh Sultansoy, of the idea of establishing a national high-energy physics and accelerator center in Türkiye. She made intensive efforts for the institutionalization and preparation of the infrastructure of the Turkish Accelerator Center project, which was planned to be implemented in Ankara Gölbaşı with the support of the State Planning Organization (SPO). She personally assumed responsibility for the detector and experimental parts of this center to be established.

Arık's widely known vision in public opinion of "Türkiye meeting its own energy needs through its thorium reserves" was directly connected to these accelerator projects. She predicted that the proton accelerators at the center to be established would make possible the prototype of a new generation of safe nuclear power plants running on thorium in the future.

Prof. Dr. Engin Arık and the other valuable scientists in her team lost their lives in the plane crash that occurred in Isparta on November 30, 2007, while they were on their way to a workshop directly related to this accelerator project and thorium studies. However, this initiative she started continued over the years, and the TARLA project rose on her legacy and became Türkiye's first free-electron laser and accelerator facility.

Unfortunately, The Republic of Türkiye was unable to protect these valuable scientists.

A Brief History of Planned Development in Türkiye and The State Planning Organization (SPO)

Türkiye’s groundbreaking state projects and processes were carried out thanks to this organization.

The State Planning Organization (SPO) was a highly significant institution in the Republic of Türkiye, established on September 30, 1960, following the 1960 Constitution, with the objective of ensuring that economic and social policies were planned in line with long-term goals. Between 1960 and 2011, Türkiye’s industrialization drives, infrastructure projects, regional development plans, and five-year development plans all passed through the SPO’s vetting process.

However, in 2011, with Decree Law №643, the SPO was abolished, and its functions were transferred to the newly established Ministry of Development. Subsequently, with the transition to the Presidential System of Government in 2018, the Ministry of Development was also dissolved, and these functions were transferred to the Strategy and Budget Directorate.

Where and How Would Türkiye Be Today if the SPO Had Not Been Closed?
Assuming that the institution’s institutional memory, merit-based bureaucratic structure, and “long-term perspective” approach had continued uninterrupted to the present day, significant differences could have emerged in Türkiye’s economic and social structure. We can examine this alternative scenario under five main headings:

Regional Development Disparities and Industrial Basins
The SPO formed the backbone of projects like Growth Centers and GAP (Southeastern Anatolia Project) to reduce regional imbalances.

* How It Would Be Today: If the SPO had survived, industrial investments would not have been confined solely to the Marmara or Aegean coasts; planned industrial basins would have been established across different regions of Anatolia. The inter-provincial development index would present a more balanced picture, and massive internal migration toward major cities could have been brought under control much earlier.

Value-Added Production and Technology-Oriented Industrial Policies
The organization’s production plans in the 1960s and 70s laid the strategy for transitioning from an Import-Substitution Industrialization model to an Export-Oriented Growth model.

* How It Would Be Today: Incentives in strategic areas — such as “high technology” and “defense industry” — that the SPO prioritized in its production planning would not have been disrupted by changes in political power. Türkiye would have overcome the middle-income trap much earlier, transforming from a mere contract manufacturing center into an economy that produces its own brands and advanced technology products in global value chains.

Public Investments Free from Political Populism
The most important characteristic of the SPO was its “technocratic” structure, capable of making technical and rational decisions independent of daily political bickering.

* How It Would Be Today: Public resources would be spent on projects based on feasibility reports and economic returns rather than electoral gains. Waste of resources would be prevented, and borrowing costs could be kept at lower levels. Since project start and completion dates were planned transparently, cost overruns would have been avoided.

Qualified Bureaucratic Memory and Merit
The SPO was a school where experts who graduated from Türkiye’s top universities were employed, and where in-house training and international experience were highly valued.

* How It Would Be Today: Thanks to institutional memory, the state’s strategic vision would have gained continuity, unaffected by changes in government. 20- to 30-year master plans in education, healthcare, agriculture, and energy would have been implemented without interruption, eliminating systems that were rewritten by each new incoming government.

Agriculture and Food Security
The SPO’s agricultural commissions would have generated projects focused on production patterns and support models to ensure Türkiye remained a self-sufficient agricultural country.

* How It Would Be Today: Unplanned urbanization destroying agricultural land would have been prevented, and permanent solutions could have been produced in the fight against food inflation. Technological transformation in agricultural production would have been implemented through state support in a planned manner.



Conclusion
The closure of the State Planning Organization was not merely an institutional transformation; it also meant the weakening of the state’s reflex to formulate long-term visions. The existence of the SPO was the guarantee of the state’s intelligence and planning center.

If this organization had preserved its existence, Türkiye would possess a structure that is more resilient to economic fluctuations, features rationally planned investments, has reduced regional imbalances, and stands upon much firmer foundations in global competition.