The son of a Turkish intellectual and a hero of Turkey’s War of Independence, Burhan had a classical high school education in different Turkish cities. He studied French at an institute in Ankara and then studied media journalism in French. He studied French literature and history at the same institute while working as an editor with a group publishing literary works, novels, weekly and monthly magazines.
He has worked as a reporter for several Turkish newspapers, including a Turkish newspaper in English (Turkish Daily News), before joining The Associated Press (AP) as a full-time photo stringer in 1989. He has been an AP staff photographer since 1996.
For the AP, he has covered the Gulf crisis in Saudi Arabia (1990), the first Gulf War at the Turkey-Iraq border, Kurds’ exodus to Turkey, and their return to Iraq after the war in 1991. He has covered all the major stories in Turkey, including the failed military coup in July 2016, northern Iraq, earthquakes in Iran and Pakistan, as well as several assignments in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Egypt, Libya, Cyprus, France, and the central Asian former Soviet Republics Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. He has also covered the crisis in Syria.
His loves are arts and literature (French, Turkish and Russian); Provence (France); Turkey’s Olympos (Antalya); and his cats Koc, BoBo, and Binnaz.
