Turgut Özal

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Premier of Turkey 1983-89

Turgut Özal (October 13, 1927–April 17, 1993) was a Turkish political leader, prime minister and 8th president of Turkey.

1 Education
2 Before Anavatan
3 Premier of Turkey
4 Family
5 External link

[edit] Education

He was born in Malatya and was of partial Kurdish descent [1]. He finished elementary school in Silifke (Mersin), middle school in Mardin, and high school in Kayseri. Özal graduated from the school of electrical engineering at the Istanbul Technical University in 1950.

[edit] Before Anavatan

Between 1950-1952, he worked in the State Electrical Power Planning Administration and continued his studies in the United States on electrical energy and engineering management between 1952-1953. After his return to Turkey, he worked in the same organization again on electrification projects until 1958. Özal was in the State Planning Department in 1959, and in the Planning Coordination Department in 1960. After his military service in 1961, he worked at several state organizations in leading positions and lectured at ODTÜ (Middle East Technical University). The World Bank employed him between 1971-1973. Then, he was chairman of some private Turkish companies until 1979. Back to the state service, he was undersecretary to the Prime minister Süleyman Demirel until the military coup on September 12, 1980. The military rulers under Kenan Evren appointed him state minister and deputy prime minister in charge of economic affairs until July 1982.

[edit] Premier of Turkey

On May 20, 1983 he founded Anavatan Partisi (Motherland Party) and became its leader. His party won the elections and he formed the government to become the 19th Prime minister on December 13, 1983. In 1987 he was reelected.

On June 18, 1988 he survived an assassination attempt during the party congress. He was wounded on his finger while another bullet missed his head. The assassin was captured and sentenced to life in prison and later pardoned by Özal.

On November 9, 1989 he became the 8th president of Turkey elected by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey . On April 17, 1993, Özal died of a sudden heart attack while he was still on duty as president. He was buried with a state ceremony in İstanbul next to the mausoleum of Adnan Menderes for whom he had great admiration.

As prime minister and later president, he transformed the economy of Turkey by paving the way for privatization of many state sectors. This has helped improve the relations with the western world, especially the United States. In fact, he was proud to claim that Turkey had become a "little America" because of the prepondarance of goods that were not present before his leadership. However, some claim that this shift from a state-dominated economy to privatization has come at the expense of the old middle class in Turkey, while others emphasized that Özal has tried to expand the middle class so as to integrate the more traditional popular rural base previously excluded from the markets. In the Gulf War of 1991, Özal supported the coalition against Iraq. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Özal made an effort to create alliances with the Turkic countries of Central Asia as well as Azerbaijan in the South Caucasus. He provided moral, economic, and military support to the latter during the Nagorno-Karabakh War threatening to invade Armenia.

[edit] Family

Turgut Özal was married with Semra and together they had two sons and a daughter. One of the sons, Ahmet Özal went to the parliament as well after the elections of 1999, but stayed out after the elections of 2002.

Preceded by -	Leader of the Motherland Party 1983–1989	Succeeded by Yıldırım Akbulut
Preceded by Bülend Ulusu	Prime Minister of Turkey 1983–1989	Succeeded by Yıldırım Akbulut
Preceded by Kenan Evren	President of Turkey 1989–1993	Succeeded by Süleyman Demirel