Yiğit Canay is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Turkey Program. Canay is a former diplomat at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he served over fifteen years in diplomatic assignments spanning New York, Afghanistan, Ankara, and Washington, DC. Canay was most recently posted at the Turkish embassy in Washington, DC, where he served between 2022 and 2025 as a political counsellor responsible for the country’s congressional engagements, stakeholder mapping strategy, and bilateral affairs with a focus on Middle East policy. Previously, he served as head of department for North America Affairs at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, managing the country’s defense and economic relations with the United States.
Since 2010, Canay has supported senior leaders of the Turkish Foreign Ministry in chief of staff and special assistant roles, including as part of the country’s response to the events that followed the Arab Spring, Syrian civil war, and NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. He was the Turkish deputy chief of mission in Kabul between 2018 and 2019, leading his country’s political outreach, donor projects, and embassy operations. As of September 2026, he is advising the Turkish-US Business Council and its member Turkish businesses in promoting bilateral trade and investments between US and Turkish private sector entities.
Canay holds a bachelor of science degree from Middle East Technical University in Ankara and a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs in New York. Currently residing in New York, he engages in research and provides geopolitical advisory services to private clients.