Gül, Abdullah

Gül, Abdullah (1950- ), Turkish politician, Prime Minister of Turkey (2002-2003) and President of Turkey (2007- ). Gül was born in the province of Kayseri, in central Turkey, on October 29, 1950. He studied economics at the University of İstanbul, from which he graduated in 1971, continuing his studies at the universities of London and Exeter in Britain. Although an activist in the National Union of Turkish Students, after the 1980 military coup Gül concentrated on his academic career at the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Sakarya. He was awarded his PhD from the University of İstanbul in 1983, after which he began working for the Islamic Development Bank, based in Saudi Arabia.

In 1991 Gül returned to politics, joining the Refah Partisi (RP; Welfare Party) of Necmettin Erbakan, and was elected to the Grand National Assembly in the legislative elections held in October of that year, representing a constituency in the Kayseri region. The party’s Islamist policies set it at odds with the army, which regards itself as the custodian of the secular state established by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1923. Gül served on the parliamentary commission for planning and the budget, and later on the foreign affairs commission. In 1993 he was elected vice-chairman of the RP with special responsibility for foreign affairs. He was re-elected to the Grand National Assembly in 1995, the year in which the RP won a simple majority of seats. However, the RP was not given the opportunity to participate in government until June 1996, when the party entered a short-lived coalition with the True Path Party of Tansu Çiller. Before the coalition collapsed under pressure from the military in June 1997, Gül served in the government as minister of state and spokesman.

After the constitutional tribunal declared the RP to be incompatible with Turkey’s secular status in January 1998, Gül became a founder of the Fazilet Partisi (FP; Virtue Party), along with Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Recai Kutan. Re-elected to the Grand National Assembly in 1999, in the legislative elections that returned Bülent Ecevit to power, Gül emerged as the leader of the reformist tendency in the FP that sought to move away from Erbakan’s conservatism. Speaking about the need to respect human rights and Turkey’s secular traditions, in May 2000 Gül challenged Kutan for the party leadership. While unsuccessful, he did win substantial support. After the FP was proscribed by the constitutional tribunal in August 2001, Gül and Erdogan founded the Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AK; Justice and Development Party). With the Ecevit government unable to convincingly handle Turkey’s mounting economic problems, the AK, eschewing religious rhetoric in favour of moderate pragmatism, convincingly won the November 2002 legislative elections. Because of a criminal conviction Erdogan, although the party’s leader, was unable to become a member of the legislature. Instead it was Gül who was sworn into office as prime minister.

Gül’s term in office was brief, as a change in the constitution enabled Erdogan to enter parliament and assume the post of prime minister in February 2003. Gül became foreign minister in Erdogan’s Cabinet, announcing that his priorities would be to concentrate on achieving a settlement to the Cyprus question and a timetable for Turkey’s entry to the European Union. In December 2004 the European Commission recommended that the EU should begin negotiations for Turkish accession in October 2005. However, the failure to achieve a peaceful reunification of Cyprus has continued to trouble relations between Brussels and Ankara.

The prospect of the election of a new Turkish president in 2007 once again generated tension between Turkish secularists and the AK. In April, Gül was named the AK’s candidate to succeed Ahmet Necdet Sezer to the presidency. Despite stating his belief in the secular nature of the office, massive secularist demonstrations were held, and army leaders expressed their concern. For secularists, the fact that Gül’s wife wears a headscarf (hijab), in accordance with Islamic dress codes, demonstrated the incompatibility between the office of head of state and publicly professed religion—the hijab is banned in Turkish government institutions. Attempting to break the impasse, Erdogan called new legislative elections for July. The AK won another resounding victory, and subsequently the Grand National Assembly elected Gül as president in August.