Atatürk (İngilizce)

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MUSTAFA KEMAL ATATURK

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–10 November 1938), until 1934 Gazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha, Turkish army officer and revolutionist statesman, was the founder and the first President of the Republic of Turkey. Mustafa Kemal established himself as a brilliant military commander while serving as a division commander in the Battle of Gallipoli. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the hands of the Allies, and the subsequent plans for its partition, Mustafa Kemal led the Turkish national movement in what would become the Turkish War of Independence. His successful military campaigns led to the liberation of the country and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. As the Republic's first president, Mustafa Kemal introduced a range of far reaching reforms which sought to create a modern, democratic and secular state. According to the Law on Family Names, the Turkish Grand Assembly presented Mustafa Kemal with the name "Atatürk" (meaning "Ancestor Turk" or "Father Turk".) on 24 November 1934.

Early life
Atatürk was born in 1881, in Selânik (which was part of the Ottoman Empire, and is now Thessaloníki in Greece), the son of a minor official who became a timber merchant. In accordance with the then prevalent Turkish custom, he was given the single name Mustafa. His father, Ali Rıza, was a customs officer who died when Mustafa was seven. As such, it was left to his mother Zübeyde Hanım to bring the young Mustafa up.

When Atatürk was 12 years old, he went to military schools in Selânik and Manastır, centres of anti-Turkish Greek nationalism. Mustafa studied at the military secondary school in Selânik, where the additional name Kemal ("perfection") was bestowed on him by his mathematics teacher in recognition of his academic brilliance. Mustafa Kemal entered the military academy at Manastır (now Bitola) in 1895. He graduated as a lieutenant in 1905 and was posted to Damascus. In Damascus, he soon joined a small secret revolutionary society of reform-minded officers called Vatan ve Hürriyet (Motherland and Liberty), and became an active opponent of the Ottoman regime. In 1907 he was posted to Selânik and joined the Committee of Union and Progress commonly known as the Young Turks.

The Young Turks seized power from the Sultan Abdul Hamid II in 1908, and Mustafa Kemal became a senior military figure. In 1911, he went to the province of Libya to take part in the defence against the Italian invasion. During the first part of the Balkan Wars Mustafa Kemal was stranded in Libya and unable to take part, but in July 1913 he returned to Istanbul and was appointed commander of the Ottoman defences of the Çanakkale (Gallipoli) area on the coast of Trakya (Thrace). In 1914 he was appointed military attaché in Sofia, partly to remove him from the capital and its political intrigues

Military career
When the Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of Germany, Mustafa Kemal was posted to Tekirdağ (on the Sea of Marmara).

Gelibolu (Gallipoli)
He was later promoted to the rank of colonel and assigned the command of a division in the Gallipoli (Turkish: "Gelibolu") area. He played a critical role in the battle against the allied British, French and ANZAC forces during the Battle of Gallipoli in April 1915, where he held off allied forces at Conkbayırı and on the Anafarta hills. For this success, he was later promoted to the rank of Brigadier General, thus acquiring the title of pasha and gained increasingly greater degrees of influence on the war effort.

Mustafa Kemal gained much respect from his former enemies for his chivalry in victory, the Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Memorial has an honoured place on ANZAC Parade in Canberra. It includes his words:

Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives... you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets where they lie side by side here in this country of ours... You the mothers who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears. Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. Having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.

Final WWI years
During 1917 and 1918 Mustafa Kemal was sent to the Caucasus (Kafkaslar) front to fight against Russian forces, against which he had some success. He was later assigned to the Hejaz (Hicaz), to suppress the Arab Revolt (which was supported by Great Britain) against Ottoman rule. After resigning his commission, he eventually returned to serve in the unsuccessful defense of Palestine. In October 1918 the Ottomans capitulated to the Allies, and Mustafa Kemal became one of the leaders of the party in favour of defending the area roughly occupied by present day Turkey, while agreeing to withdraw from all the other territories.

Turkish Emancipation
For more details on this topic, see Turkish War of Independence.
As the Allies started to occupy the Ottoman Empire, Turkish Revolutionaries began to show resistance. Mustafa Kemal organized the most successful of several "Kuva-i Milliye" (National Force) movements that blossomed into the Turkish War of Independence.

Mustafa Kemal's revolution began with his assignment in Samsun, where he was given emergency powers as Inspector of the XIXth Army. Once in Anatolia, interpreting his powers liberally, he contacted and started issuing orders to provincial governors and military commanders - calling on them to resist occupation. In June 1919 he and his close friends issued the Declaration of Amasya which described why Istanbul's authority was illegitimate. The Young Turks politically promoted the idea that a government-in-exile should be set up somewhere in Anatolia. Istanbul's order for the execution of Kemal came too late. A new parliament, the Grand National Assembly, was formed in Ankara in April 1920. It conferred upon Mustafa Kemal Pasha the title 'President of the National Assembly', repudiated the Sultan's government in Istanbul and rejected the Treaty of Sèvres.

For more details on this topic, see Jurisdictional Conflict
On the military front, the conflict between nationalist movement and Triple Entente powers went on three fronts. Which one of them with the Greece (west front), where Turkish forces fell back in good order to the Sakarya river, eighty kilometres from Grand National Assembly. Atatürk took personal command and decisively defeated the Greeks in the twenty day Battle of Sakarya in August-September 1921. Final victory over the Greeks came in the Battle of Dumlupinar in August 1922.



For more details on this topic, see Theatres of the War
On the political front, Mustafa Kemal Pasha signed the Treaty of Kars (October 23, 1921) with the Soviet Union, a treaty of friendship in which Turkey ceded the city of Batumi, in present-day Georgia, to Lenin's Bolsheviks in return for sovereignty over the cities of Kars and Ardahan, which were lost to Tsarist Russia in Russo-Turkish War, 1877-1878.

For more details on this topic, see Stage for Peace
Mustafa Kemal Pasha's victory in the Turkish War of Independence assured Turkey's sovereignty. He ushered the Treaty of Lausanne, through which Turkey finally entered a period of peace after a disastrous decade of warfare, despite irredentist opposition in the National Assembly and elsewhere

Post war life and reforms
Mustafa Kemal spent the next several years consolidating his control over Turkey and instituting a variety of wide-ranging political, economic and social reforms. These reforms caused some opposition in the Republican People's Party ("Cumhuriyet Halk Fırkası" in Turkish) which was founded by Mustafa Kemal in September 9th 1923. Then Mustafa Kemal directed General Kazım Karabekir to establish the Progressive Republican Party ("Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkası" in Turkish) for opposition in Turkish National Assembly. This party opposed state socialism of the Republican People's Party and suggested liberalism. But after some time, the new party was taken over by people Ataturk considered fundamentalists. In 1925, partly in response to the provocations of Sheikh Said, the Maintenance of Order Law was passed, giving Ataturk the authority to shut down subversive groups. The Republican People's Party was quickly disestablished under the new law, an act seen by some as necessary for preserving the Turkish state, but seen by others as the act of a dictator.

On August 11th, 1930 Mustafa Kemal decided to try a democratic movement once again. He charged Ali Fethi Okyar with establishing a new party. In Mustafa Kemal's letter to Ali Fethi Okyar, laicism was insisted on. At first, the brand new Liberal Republican Party succeeded all around the country. But once again the opposition party became too strong in its opposition to Atatürk's reforms, particularly in regard to the role of religion in public life. Finally Ali Fethi Okyar abolished his own party and Mustafa Kemal never succeeded in democratising the parliamentary system. He sometimes dealt sternly with opposition in pursuing his main goal of democratizing the country.

Cultural reform
Mustafa Kemal regarded the fez (in Turkish "fes", which Sultan Mahmud II had originally introduced to the Ottoman Empire's dress code in 1826) as a symbol of feudalism and banned it, encouraging Turkish men to wear European attire.

Culture and the Arts
Atatürk once stated: "Culture is the foundation of the Turkish Republic." His view of culture included both his own nation's creative legacy and what he saw as the more admirable values of world civilization, and he put an emphasis on humanism above all. He once described modern Turkey's ideological thrust as "a creation of patriotism blended with a lofty humanist ideal."

So as to assist in the creation of such a synthesis, Atatürk stressed the need to utilize the elements of the national heritage of the Turks and of Anatolia—including its ancient indigenous cultures—as well as the arts and techniques of other world civilizations, both past and present. He emphasized the study of earlier Anatolian civilizations, such as the Hittites, Phrygians, and Lydians. The pre-Islamic culture of the Turks became the subject of extensive research, and particular emphasis was laid upon the fact that—long before the Seljuk and Ottoman civilizations—the Turks had had a rich culture. Atatürk also stressed the folk arts of the countryside as a wellspring of Turkish creativity.

The visual and the plastic arts—whose development had on occasion been arrested by some Ottoman officials claiming that the depiction of the human form was idolatry—flourished during the presidency of Atatürk. Many museums were opened; architecture began to follow more modern trends; and classical Western music, opera, and ballet, as well as the theatre, also took greater hold. Several hundred "People's Houses" and "People's Rooms" across the country allowed greater access to a wide variety of artistic activities, sports, and other cultural events. Book and magazine publications increased as well, and the film industry began to grow.

Mustafa Kemal had a secular and nationalistic vision in his re-development of Turkey. He was fiercely opposed to the expression of the Islamic culture indigenous to the Turkish people. The use of the Arabic script was banned and the state was forcibly switch to a new Latin-based alphabet. Traditional Islamic dress, which was the cultural apparrel of the Turkish people for hundreds of years, was outlawed and dress codes were implemented that enforced Western clothing.

Legacy
Atatürk died in 1938 at age 57 of liver cirrhosis due to a lifelong addiction to alcohol. His lifestyle had always been strenuous. Alcohol consumption during dinner discussions, smoking and very long hours hard at work with little sleep, and working on his projects and dreams had been his way of life. As the historian Will Durant had said, men devoted to war, politics, and public life wear out fast, and all three had been the passion of Atatürk.


ISMET INONU
Mustafa İsmet İnönü (September 24, 1884 - December 25, 1973) was a Turkish soldier, statesman and the second President of Turkey.

He was born in İzmir in 1884. His father was Hacı Reşid Bey, a member of the Ottoman bureaucracy, an examining magistrate born in Malatya, and his mother was Cevriye Hanım, daughter of Russo-Turkish War refugees from Bulgaria. Due to his father's assignments, the family moved from one city to another. Thus, İsmet İnönü did his primary studies in Sivas.

İnönü graduated from the Military Academy in 1903 and received his first military assignment in the Ottoman army. He joined the Committee of Union and Progress. He won his first military victories by suppressing two major revolts against the struggling Ottoman Empire, first in Rumelia and second in Yemen whose leader was Yahya Muhammad Hamid ed-Din. He was also the military officer on the preparation of the new frontier between Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria after Balkan Wars. During World War I, he fought on the eastern front in Syria, then he was appointed as the commander of the western fronts. During his assignment in the Caucasus he worked with Atatürk. After World War I he passed the Anatolia to join the Turkish nationalist movement. After the default of Ali Fuat Cebesoy to organize the local Turkish rebellious troops, he became the general commander of the western Turkish army and remained in this position during War of Independence. He was promoted to brigadier general after the "Battles of İnönü", in which he successfully defended the central Anatolian territory against the Greek Army. During War of Independence he was also member of the Grand National Assembly.

He made a career change by being chosen as the chief of the Turkish delegation in the Treaty of Lausanne. İnönü had been Prime Minister of Turkey for several terms, maintaining the system Atatürk had put in place. He acted after every crisis (such as the civil disorder of Sheikh Said or attempted assassination of Atatürk in Izmir) to restore peace in the country. He managed the successful economic launch, especially after the 1929 economic crisis, by planning with the help of the Soviet Union.

After the death of Atatürk, he was the only candidate to succeed him, and he was elected as the second President of the Republic of Turkey. His biggest political achievement was keeping Turkey out of World War II. In 1950 his party lost the general election and presided over the peaceful transfer of power to the Democratic Party. İnönü served for ten years as leader of the opposition before returning to power after the coup of 1960.


İnönü's tombIsmet Inönü was by the standards of his time a highly educated man, speaking Arabic, German, French and English.

İnönü died in 1973. He was interred opposite Atatürk's mausoleum at Anıtkabir in Ankara.

His son, Erdal İnönü, is a former leader of the Republican People's Party and deputy prime minister of Turkey.

CELAL BAYAR
Mahmut Celal Bayar (May 16, 1883 – August 22, 1986) was a Turkish politician, statesman and the third President of Turkey.

He was born in 1883 at Umurbey, a village of Gemlik, Bursa as the son of a religious leader and teacher who immigrated from Bulgaria. After the school, he worked as a clerk first in the court in Gemlik and then in Ziraat Bankası and later in the Deutsche Orientbank in Bursa.

In 1908, he joined the volunteer’s troop of "İttihad Terakki Cemiyeti" (Committee of Union and Progress), a political organization of Young Turks and became an important member. He served as the secretary-general of the newly founded İzmir branch of this party. He contributed to the foundation of a girl’s college and a railway school.

In 1919, Bayar was elected to the Ottoman Parliament in Istanbul as deputy of Saruhan (today Manisa). Because he did not agree with the new form of constitution determined by the sultan, he went in 1920 to Ankara to join Mustafa Kemal by the Turkish Independence Movement. He became an active member of the "Müdafaa-i Hukuk Cemiyeti" (Association for Defense of Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia), another political organization formed after the World War I. He became deputy of Bursa in the newly established Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The same year, he served as deputy Minister of Economy and on February 27, 1921 he was appointed as Minister of Economy. He led the negotiation commission during the Çerkez Ethem uprising. In 1922, Bayar took part in the Turkish delegation during the Lausanne Peace Conference as an advisor to İsmet İnönü. After the elections in 1923, he served as deputy of İzmir in the parliament. On August 26, 1924, he founded Türkiye İş Bankası in Ankara and was its Managing Director until 1932.


On October 25, 1937 Mustafa Kemal Atatürk appointed him as prime minister of the 9th government after İsmet İnönü left the government. He continued to serve as prime minister when Atatürk died and İnönü became president in 1938. Differences of opinion with Inönü led him to lay down his office on January 25, 1939.

Until 1945, he was a member of Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (the Republican People's Party), a social-democratic, republican, Turkish nationalist party. Then on January 7, 1946, he founded Demokrat Parti (the Democratic Party), a conservative, moderate Islamic party, along with Adnan Menderes, Fuat Köprülü and Refik Koraltan. The DP won, with 408 of 487 seats, a majority at the general elections on May 14, 1950. The parliament elected Bayar, the chairman of the DP, as president of Turkey. He was subsequently reelected in 1954 and 1957, serving 10 years long as president. In that period, Adnan Menderes was his prime minister.

On May 27, 1960 the armed forces staged a coup d’etat and sent Celal Bayar along with Adnan Menderes and some other government and party members to a military court on the tiny island Yassiada in the Sea of Marmara on June 10 of the same year. He and 15 other party members were tried for violating the constitution and sentenced to death by the High Court of Justice on September 15, 1961. The ruling military committee approved the death sentence for Menderes, Zorlu and Polatkan, but the punishment for Bayar and other 12 party members was commuted to life imprisonment. Bayar was sent to jail in Kayseri, but he was released on November 7, 1964 due to ill health and pardoned in 1966. He died on August 22, 1986 in Istanbul at the age of 103. He was father of three children.

Celal Bayar was the longest lived politician of the world until Dutch politician Marinus van der Goes van Naters died at the age of 104 in 2005.

In 1958, The Freie Universität Berlin (Free University Berlin) awarded him honorary doctorate. A university (founded 1992) in Manisa is named after him.

CEMAL GÜRSEL
Cemal Gürsel (1895–1966), a statesman and a soldier, was a Turkish army officer, political leader and the 4th president of Turkey.

Early life
He was born in 1895 at Erzurum as the son of a Turkish Ottoman army officer and the grandson of a Pasha (general). After the elementary school in Ordu and the military middle school in Erzincan, he graduated from the Kuleli military high school in İstanbul. He was a popular figure and was therefore nicknamed “Cemal Aga” (big brother Cemal) since his childhood school years and onwards all his life. During the World War I , he participated in the Battle of Çanakkale as an artillery lieutentant in 1915. He later fought at the Palestine and Syria fronts in 1917 and became a prisoner of war by the British while suffering malaria during the command of his 41st Battery on 19 September 1918. He was kept as a POW in Egypt until 06 October 1920. After his release, he returned to Anatolia to re-join Mustafa Kemal and took part in all the western front campaigns in the Turkish War of Independence between 1920-1923.

He was married, in 1927, to Melahat, the daughter of a navy officer who served on Frigate Hamidiye, and they had one son, Muzaffer.
Military career
Gürsel attended the military academy and graduated in 1929 as a staff officer. From 1946 on, he served in all general ranks up to four-star general including chief of intelligence and was appointed as the Commander of Land Forces in 1958 when he was in command of the 3rd Army. He had earned the respect and confidence of both the nation and the armed forces with his professional knowledge and demeanour. A patriotic memorandum he sent in April of 1960 to the Minister of Defense in an effort to establish checks and balances on ongoing affairs resulted in his suspension from his post on May 3 forcing early retirement instead of becoming the next chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. He went to İzmir where he presided the Anti-Communism Association of Turkey.

Head of state
The military overthrew the government without the participation or leadership of Cemal Gursel on May 27, 1960 after continuing civilian and academia unrests throughout the country. Because of his immense popularity among the public and military ranks, Gürsel was subsequently chosen and brought in as the leader of the military coup that sent President Celal Bayar, Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and some other members of the ruling Demokrat Parti (The Democratic Party) to a military court on Yassıada in the Sea of Marmara, accusing them for violence of constitution. He was declared the commander in chief, Head of state, Prime minister and Minister of Defense of the 24th government on May 30, 1960. His plea for forgiveness and attempts along with several other world leaders for the reversal of the execution sentences and for the release of most of the arrested politicians were rejected by the Junta. Cemal Gürsel resisted pressure to continue military rule, was wounded as a result of a military assassination attempt on his life, thwarted subsequent multiple military coup attempts and played an important role in the preparation of a new constitution and return to the democratic order in Kemalist vision.

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Statesman
The constitution, which brought for the first time a full text of civil and political rights under constitutional protection along with an improved system of checks and balances in Turkish history, was approved by a referendum held on October 10, 1961. The Turkish Grand National Assembly was re-opened after the general elections and voted him as the fourth president of Turkey. He took an active role in extensive modernization of Turkish Armed Forces and the staunch defense of the free world and Europe during the cold war, in particular during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The declaration of independency of Cyprus according to the prior agreements and the deployment of a Turkish military unit to Cyprus took place in August 1960. With the reduction of tensions between the West and the Soviet bloc, he seeked improved relations for his county’s population of 27.8 million with the Soviet Union, such as the initiation of a telephone line agreement, as with the other members of the Western alliance while initiating new credit agreements with the US and the UK as well as bilateral technical and investment relations with Germany in 1960s. He hosted the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Ankara in early 1961 and the visit of the vice president Lyndon Johnson in 1962. The atomic reactor in Istanbul became operational in 1962 along with his establishment of the first Research and State Library of the government in two years after his administration started. He promoted the grant of the freedom of and the legal rights to form unions and to go on strike in the country. On November 7 1964, Cemal Gürsel granted presidential pardon for the life sentence of the previous president Celal Bayar. He initiated the new era of planned economy in Turkey, launched the State Planning Organization (DPT) that implemented "The First 5-Years Development Plan" and moved Turkey into the direction of European Union membership with Ankara Agreement, signed with France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Luxemburg in 1963, resulting in associate membership the following year. He added the Ministry of Culture and Tourism to the cabinet for the first time. When the Cypriot leader threatened in November 1963 to amend basic articles of the 1960 constitution guaranteeing the rights of ethnic Turks on the island, communal violence ensued and Turkey, Great Britain and Greece, the guarantors of the agreements which led to Cyprus' independence, wanted to send a NATO force to the island. He paved the way to Middle Eastern countries and Pakistan to concentrate on economic and cultural matters of mutual interest and Ankara recognised Syria following the breakup of the old United Arab Republic in 1961, further reestablishing diplomatic relations with Egypt in 1965. In July 1964, Pakistani President Ayub Khan, Turkish President Cemal Gursel, and Shah Muhammad Reza of Iran announced in Istanbul the establishment of the Regional Cooperation for Development (RCD) organization to promote transportation and joint economic projects also envisioning Afghanistan and possibly Indonesia joining at some time in the future. In November 1965, under his administration, The School of Press and Broadcasting was opened at the College of Political Sciences in Ankara. He brought the Microwave Telecommunications Network into operation increasing telephone and teletype capacity along with a High-Frequency Radio Link connecting London and Ankara with Rawalpindi, Karachi, Tehran and Istanbul. The production of the first domestic Turkish automobile, Devrim (Revolution), took place with his directive. Gursel founded The National Security Council (MGK) as well as the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) in 1963, appointing Professor Cahit Arf as its first director, officially charging TUBITAK primarily with governmental advisory duty by legislation.

Illness
Because of a paralysis that started in early 1966 and progressed quickly, Cemal Gürsel was flown February 2 to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C on the airplane sent by US President Lyndon B. Johnson. One week later, he fell into a coma there. The government decided he return to Turkey on March 24. With a report of a medical committee by Gülhane military hospital in Ankara, the parliament ruled on March 28, 1966 that his presidency be terminated due to ill health in accordance with the constitution . He died of apoplexy on September 14, 1966 in Ankara. He was laid to rest at the Freedom Martyrs Memorial section of the mausoleum of Ataturk and later transferred to the State Memorial.


CEVDET SUNAY
Cevdet Sunay was a Turkish army officer, political leader and the 5th president of Turkey.

He was born in 1899 in Trabzon. After visiting the elementary school and middle school in Erzurum, Kerkük (today in Iraq) and Edirne, he graduated from the Kuleli military high school in İstanbul. During the World War I, he fought in 1917 at the Palestine front, became a prisoner of war by British in Egypt in 1918. After his release, he took part first in the southern front, then in the western front battles of the Turkish War of Independence.

Sunay completed his military education in 1927, and graduated from military academy in 1930 as a staff officer. Rising through the ranks to become a general in 1949 and then a four-star general in 1959, he held important military posts. In 1960, he was appointed to chief of army and later chief of joint staff. On March 14, 1966, he was elected to the senate from the presidential contingency.

As president Cemal Gürsel was unable to fulfill his duties due to his illness and had to be taken off office, Cevdet Sunay was elected 5th president by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey on March 28, 1966. He maintained his office despite increasing terrorist activity, student riots, and threatened coups. He served the constitutional term of seven years until March 28, 1973 and became then a permanent senator.

He was married with Atıfet since 1929. They had three children.

Cevdet Sunay died on May 22, 1982.


FAHRİ KORUTÜRK
Fahri Korutürk was a Turkish navy officer, diplomat and 6th president of Turkey. He was born on August 3, 1903 in İstanbul.

He attended the navy middle school in 1916, graduated from the navy high school in 1923 and from the navy academy in 1933. Korutürk served active on cruisers and submarines in the navy and abroad as naval attaché in Rome (Italy), Berlin (Germany) and Stockholm (Sweden). In 1936, he participated in Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Turkish Straits as military advisor. He was made rear admiral in 1950 and commanded various units until he became admiral. After his retirement in 1960 from the post Chief navy, Korutürk was sent as ambassador to diplomatic missions in Moscow (Soviet Union) and Madrid (Spain).

In 1968, president Cevdet Sunay appointed him to membership of the senate on presidential contingency. On April 6, 1973, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey elected him the 6th president. Korutürk served the constitutional period of seven years until April 6, 1980. Then, he became a permanent senator.

He was married with Emel since 1944. They had two sons and a daughter. His surname was given to him by Kemal Atatürk.

Fahri Korutürk died on October 12, 1987 Moda İstanbul.


KENAN EVREN
Kenan Evren, born c. 1918 in Alaşehir, Manisa, was a Turkish general, the leader of the coup d'etat on 12 September 1980 and the 7th president of Turkey. He was Counter-Guerrilla's commander, Gladio's Turkish branch of NATO's "stay-behind" secret armies.

After going to elementary school and middle school in Manisa, Balıkesir and İstanbul, he attended military high school in Maltepe, Ankara. In 1938, he graduated from army school and in 1949 from military academy as a staff officer. He participated in the Korean War. In 1958 and 1959 he served in Korea. In 1964 he was made general. Evren served at various posts like as Chief army. He became Chief joint staff in 1978.

He led the September 12 1980 military coup in Turkey against the elected civilian government. With the coup, the National Security Council (MGK), which was composed of Kenan Evren, the Chief of the general staff, and the force commanders, dissolved the parliament and the government. According a widely believed story in Turkey, he and his team of force commanders were named "our boys" in the CIA headquarters after the coup.

After the coup, in 1982, he became President of Turkey on November 7 with the approval of the new constitution that was submitted to a public referendum. He is considered to have ruled the country with an iron fist until November 9, 1989. He seemed to have great admiration for the founder of Turkey, Kemal Atatürk, but he shut down some institutions founded by Atatürk and is often accused of deforming the country's legal system against Atatürk's principles. During his military regime, some people were executed because of their political murders, including a 18 year old boy named Erdal Eren. Kenan Evren is remembered for his comment on these executions: "Asmayalım da besleyelim mi?" (Shall we feed them rather than hanging them?)

His reputation as a both military man and a political leader has suffered due to the many gaffes he made. However, some believe that he did a great service to the Turkish republic and without the coup he led in 1980 the clash of militant factions in Turkey would have caused more damage.

After his retirement, he moved to the Turkish Mediterranean resort town of Marmaris and took up painting.

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

He was born in Malatya. 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.

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.

On May 20, 1983 he founded Anavatan Partisi (the Motherland Party) and became its chairman. 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 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 middle class in Turkey. In the Gulf War of 1991, Özal supported the coalition against Iraq.

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.
SULEYMAN DEMİREL
Süleyman Demirel (born November 1, 1924) is a Turkish politician who served as prime minister five times and was the 9th President of Turkey.

Demirel was born in İslamköy, a village in Isparta. Upon completion of his elementary school education in his hometown, he attended middle school and high school in Isparta and Afyon respectively. He graduated from the school of civil engineering at the Istanbul Technical University in 1949. Demirel worked in the state department for electrical power planning in 1949. He undertook postgraduate studies on irrigation, electrical technologies and dam construction in the United States first in 1949-1950, then in 1954-1955. During the construction of the Seyhan Dam, Demirel worked as a project engineer and in 1954 was appointed Head of Department of Dams. As of 1955, he served as director general of the State Hydraulic Works Department. In this capacity, Demirel was to supervise the construction of a multitude of dams, power plants, and irrigation facilities. Upon completion of his military service, he worked as a free-lance engineer and advisor between 1962-1964. During this period, he worked as a lecturer of hydraulic engineering at ODTÜ Middle East Technical University in Ankara.

His political career started with his election to the executive board of Adalet Partisi (the Justice Party) that was a replacement of Demokrat Parti (the Democrat Party) closed after the military coup of May 27, 1960 led by Cemal Gürsel. Demirel was elected chairman at the second grand convention on November 28, 1964. He facilitated the formation of a coalition government that ruled between February and October 1965 under the premiership of Suat Hayri Ürgüplü, in which he served as Deputy Prime Minister. Under his leadership, AP won an unprecedented majority of the votes in the elections of October 10, 1965 and formed a majority government. As deputy from Isparta, Demirel became Turkey’s 12th Prime Minister and ruled the country for four years. In the next elections on October 10, 1969, his party was the sole winner by a landslide once again. He resigned upon the military memorandum of March 12, 1971. Between 1971 and 1980, he served as prime minister for three more times, respectively in 1975-1977, 1977-1978 and 1979-1980.

Following the coup d'etat of September 12, 1980, headed by Kenan Evren, he was banned from involvement in active politics for ten years. In 1986 however, Demirel launched a national campaign for the lifting of the bans and initiated a national referendum on the issue. The September 6, 1987 referendum allowed him to return to active politics. Already 18 days later, Demirel was elected chairman at the extraordinary convention of Doğru Yol Partisi (the True Path Party) that replaced the closed Adalet Partisi. He was reelected deputy of Isparta at the elections of November 29, 1987. Following the elections of October 20, 1991, Demirel became prime minister once again in a coalition government with the Social Democratic People's Party. After the sudden death of president Turgut Özal, he became the 9th president on May 16, 1993, elected by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. Demirel served until May 16, 2000, for the constitutional term of seven years.

A director general when only 30, a party chairman and prime minister at 40, Demirel has done his utmost for the development and industrialization of the country. He still holds the record for Turkey's youngest prime minister ever. Only İsmet İnönü’s tenure as prime minister was longer than his.

He is married to Nazmiye Demirel and has no children.

The Süleyman Demirel University in Isparta is named after him.

AHMET NECDET SEZER
Ahmet Necdet Sezer (born September 13, 1941 in Afyon) is the tenth and current President of Turkey. The Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi (the Grand National Assembly of Turkey) elected Sezer in 2000 after Süleyman Demirel's seven year term expired.

He graduated from Afyon High School in 1958. He graduated from the Ankara University Faculty of Law in 1962 and began his career as a judge in Ankara. Following his military service at the Military Academy, he served first as a judge in Dicle and Yerköy, and later as a supervisory judge in the High Court of Appeals in Ankara. In 1978 he received LL.M. in civil law from the Faculty of Law in Ankara University .

On 7 March 1983, he was elected as a member to the High Court of Appeals. As he was a member in the Second Chamber of Law, Sezer was recommended to the president by the plenary assembly of the High Court of Appeals among the three candidates for appointment as member of the Constitutional Court. On 27 September 1988, he was appointed by the president as member of the Constitutional Court. On 6 January 1998, he was elected chief justice of the Constitutional Court.

He is married to Semra Sezer and has three children.

He was sworn in as President of the Republic on May 16, 2000. He is a strong secularist, and has sometimes been at odds with his Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.