As part of his inaugural visit to Wolfsburg, Lord Mayor Dennis Weilmann received the Turkish Consul General Yusuf Arikan in the town hall. He was accompanied by Vice Consul Ertan Bayram. The diplomat took up his post in Hanover in September 2024. After the official welcome, Arikan signed the guest book of the city of Wolfsburg. "The Turks living in Wolfsburg are important for the city, especially in terms of cultural diversity. They play a significant role in the development of Volkswagen," emphasized Dennis Weilmann.

Born in the Ünye district of Ordu on the Black Sea, the Consul General graduated from Akdeniz University in Antalya in the field of tourism management and from Ankara University at the Faculty of Language and History-Geography with a specialization in German language and literature. Arikan joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1990.

He served abroad at the Embassy in Dhaka (Bangladesh), at the United Nations in Vienna, at the Consulate General in Münster, at the Embassy in Berlin and most recently at the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Turkey to the United Nations in Geneva and at the Embassy in Muscat (Oman).

There are currently around 1,000 people living in Wolfsburg (as of the end of 2024) who have Turkish citizenship as their first nationality. In 2020 there were around 700.