PROFILE - Turgut Ozal: Leader who transformed Turkey's economy

ANKARA 

Turkey is commemorating Turgut Ozal on the 27th anniversary of his passing for both his politics and the economic innovations he brought to the country.

From 1983-1989, Ozal served as the 26th prime minister of Turkey as leader of the Motherland Party (ANAP) and from 1989-1993 served as the country’s eighth president.

Turkey remembers Ozal as the leader who transformed the country’s economy into a market economy as the country emerged from three years of military rule in 1983.

He passed away on April 17, 1993, from a sudden heart attack after returning from a 12-day tour of the Turkic republics in Central Asia.

Born in the eastern province of Malatya in 1927, Ozal graduated from the Department of Electrical Engineering at Istanbul Technical University in 1950.

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

Ozal married Semra Yeyinmen in 1954 and they had three children -- Zeynep, Efe, and Ahmet.

He became an undersecretary at the Turkish State Planning Organization from 1967-1971, and during the 1970s, he worked as an economist for the World Bank.

After returning to Turkey, he worked in various private companies, and towards the end of 1979, he was appointed undersecretary of the Prime Ministry by then-Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel.

In 1980, when the military overthrew Demirel, Ozal was asked to stay on as undersecretary.

Ozal implemented a program of economic reforms that paved the way for greater economic liberalism of the Turkish economy.

He was appointed deputy prime minister responsible for the economy but resigned in 1982 due to disagreements over economic policies.

In 1983, after a ban on political parties was lifted by the military government, Ozal became prime minister of the center-right Motherland Party, which he also founded.

The party won a second time in 1987 while Ozal continued his free-market, Western-oriented economic policies.

Ozal's foreign policy focused on avoiding war with Greece following the 1987 Aegean crisis and also temporarily allowed Turks in Bulgaria to return to Turkey.

On June 18, 1988, he survived an assassination attempt during the party congress. One bullet wounded his finger while another missed his head.

Toward the end of the decade, his popularity began to decline due to persistent inflation and rising unemployment.

Ozal responded in 1989 by being elected the eighth president of Turkey by the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM).

He was known to support the rights of Turkey's Kurdish minority and implied that his grandmother was also Kurdish.

During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Ozal led Turkey to join the UN coalition against Iraq.

He remained in office until dying in the capital Ankara.