Turgut Özal

Halil Turgut Özal (13 October 1927 – 17 April 1993) was a prominent Turkish politician, bureaucrat, engineer and statesman who served as the 8th President of Turkey from 1989 to 1993.

Özal studied electrical engineering at Istanbul Technical University, graduating in 1950.

Between 1950 and 1952, he worked at the State Electrical Power Planning Administration and continued his studies in the United States on electrical energy and engineering management between 1952 and 1953.

After his return to Turkey, he worked in the same organization again on electrification projects until 1958.

Özal was in the State Planning Organization 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 and 1973.

He unsuccessfully stood for Parliament in the 1977 general election as a National Salvation Party (MSP) candidate from İzmir.

In the parliamentary elections of 1977 he became a candidate for the National Salvation Party (MSP) on the insistence of his brother, but did not succeed.

After working briefly at the World Bank in the United States and as a university lecturer, Özal became the general secretary and later the leader of the main miners' trade union of Turkey in 1979, serving as a chief negotiator during large-scale industrial action in 1977.

In 1979, he became an undersecretary to Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel's minority government until the 1980 military coup.

As an undersecretary, he played a major role in developing economic reforms, known as the 24 January decisions, which paved the way for greater neoliberalism in the Turkish economy.

After the coup, he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey responsible for the economy in Bülend Ulusu's government and continued to implement economic reforms.

Then, he was chairman of some private Turkish companies until 1979.

He was the Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey in the military government of Bülend Ulusu between 1980 and 1982.

Back to the state service, he was undersecretary to Turkish Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel until the military coup on 12 September 1980.

He resigned in 1982 following disagreements over economic policy.

The military junta under Kenan Evren appointed him state minister and deputy prime minister in charge of economic affairs until July 1982.

He previously served as the 26th Prime Minister of Turkey from 1983 to 1989 as the leader of the Motherland Party.

Özal formed the Motherland Party (ANAP) in 1983 after the ban on political parties was lifted by the military government.

ANAP won a parliamentary majority in the 1983 general election and Özal subsequently became the Prime Minister of Turkey.

On 20 May 1983 he founded the Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi) and became its leader.

His party won the elections and he formed the government to become the 19th Prime minister on 13 December 1983.

While implementing several economic reforms concerning the exchange rate and deregulation, a rise in inflation and the growing conflict with Kurdish separatists led to ANAP winning reduced pluralities in the 1984 local elections.

During his tenure as a prime minister he was involved in shaping the foreign economic relations of Turkey and with his support the Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey (DEİK) was established in 1986.

He also began to take delegations of business leaders on his foreign trips.

Despite a referendum in 1987 allowing politicians banned during the 1980 coup to resume political activities, ANAP was re-elected with a parliamentary majority in the 1987 general election, albeit with a reduced share of the vote.

In 1987 he again became prime minister after winning elections.

He survived an assassination attempt during a party congress in 1988.

Özal's foreign policy focused on averting war with Greece following the Şimşek Incident and temporarily allowed Bulgarian Turks to emigrate to Turkey.

Özal was elected President of the Turkish Republic in the 1989 presidential election, while Yıldırım Akbulut replaced him as Prime Minister.

Despite assuming a ceremonial role with minimal political duties, Özal remained occupied with government activities, such as intervening in the 1990 Zonguldak miners' strikes.

While Akbulut took a docile approach as Prime Minister, disputes over the President's and Prime Minister's duties were dominant when Süleyman Demirel became Prime Minister after the 1991 general election.

The Southeastern Anatolia development project began with the construction of the Atatürk Dam in Şanlıurfa, while Özal participated in the first ever summit of Turkic Republics in 1992 held in Ankara.

He maintained close relations with the President of the United States George H. W. Bush during the Gulf War and the end of the Cold War.

Özal died unexpectedly while in office in 1993, with an exhumation in 2012 leading to evidence of poisoning but the cause of death was unclear.

Halil Turgut Özal was born in Malatya, the eldest of three sons.

His mother was originally from Çemişgezek, Tunceli and of either half or full Kurdish descent.

His parents have been described as "devout Muslims", his father having trained as an imam before becoming a branch manager at the state-owned Agricultural Bank while his mother was an elementary school teacher associated with the community of İskenderpaşa, affiliated with the Naqshbandi Sufi order, and Turgut Özal himself would get involved with the group later on.

He completed elementary school in Silifke, middle school in Mardin, and high school in Kayseri.