-Caveat Lector- >From Int'l Herald Tribune Paris, Tuesday, January 12, 1999 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ By Stephen Kinzer New York Times Service ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ISTANBUL - Turkey's six-week-old political crisis appeared to end Monday when a strongly secular politician, Bulent Ecevit, announced that he had assembled a minority government. It is expected to win parliamentary approval by Sunday. The country has been without a functioning government since Nov. 25, when Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz, who was implicated in a corruption scandal, lost a confidence vote in Parliament. He has remained in office as a caretaker. It is uncertain how long Mr. Ecevit will remain in power. An election is scheduled for April, but President Suleyman Demirel and powerful military commanders want to postpone it. They fear that a quick election will produce new gains for the Islamic political movement. Mr. Ecevit's government will be the sixth since the last election, in December 1995. That election led to a government headed by the Islamic leader Necmettin Erbakan. His policies angered the country's military commanders, who are committed to secularism, and they orchestrated a campaign that led to his resignation after one year in office. In the political bickering that has split the country since then, Mr. Ecevit has solidified his position as one of Turkey's most steadfast secularists. He is a also strong nationalist, and is remembered as the prime minister who ordered troops to Cyprus in 1974 in what he described as a ''peace operation'' to protect the Turkish minority there. These convictions make him acceptable to the military despite the fact that he is a lifelong leftist. The cabinet that Mr. Ecevit presented Monday is made up almost entirely of members of his own Democratic Left Party. Although the party is a minority in Parliament, other power brokers have signaled that they will support it. Key figures from the outgoing government will keep their jobs, among them Foreign Minister Ismail Cem, who is considered pro-Western; Finance Minister Zekeriya Temizel, whose immediate task will be to help negotiate a new loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund; and Education Minister Hikmet Ulugbay, who has angered some Muslims with his campaign against religious influence in schools and universities. Mr. Ecevit has been a political figure in Turkey for more than 40 years, beginning with his first election to Parliament in 1957. In the 1970s he served three terms as prime minister. holding office for a total of 33 months. He is one of a handful of elderly politicians who have, depending on one's point of view, given Turkey political continuity or kept it in the grip of an unresponsive elite. Among the most fateful of Mr. Ecevit's policies was his work in the 1970s to prevent Turkey from joining the European Union, then called the European Community. He believed it represented capitalist forces seeking to dominate Turkey and pull it away from its allies in the Middle East. Turkey is now committed to joining the Union, but no longer finds the climate as welcoming as it was then. Mr. Ecevit is the godfather of Turkey's political left. He has maintained his convictions even in the face of trials, assassination attempts and prison terms. Critics say he clings to outdated views. They cite his beliefs in anti-imperialism, protectionist economics and heavy state involvement in the economy. A policy statement distributed by his party, however, says the party has reformed and now favors ''a market economy that should operate within a democratic leftist framework in which workers' participation and joint people's enterprises will play a dominant role.'' Virtually alone among senior politicians here, Mr. Ecevit lives modestly and has avoided the taint of scandal. His insistence on driving to work in an aging Turkish sedan rather than using the chauffeur-driven Mercedes to which he is entitled has given him a reputation as something of an eccentric. Mr. Ecevit's education also sets him apart from many of his colleagues. He studied English literature at Ankara University, and later Sanskrit and Bengali at London University. In 1957 he spent eight months at Harvard. Before entering politics, Mr. Ecevit worked as a journalist, including as a columnist for the Winston-Salem Journal in North Carolina. He is an accomplished translator and has produced Turkish versions of works ranging from ''The Cocktail Party'' by T.S. Eliot to the Indian classic ''Bhagavadgita.'' >From Reuters Saturday January 9 5:40 AM ET Turkey's Military Warns Islamic Activists - Papers ANKARA, Turkey (Reuters) - Turkey's powerful military, worried by a protracted political crisis, has issued a strong implicit warning that Islamist political organizations could be outlawed as a threat to democracy. The warning, clearly directed at the country's Islamist Virtue Party, was contained in a 14-page pamphlet bearing the deceptively banal title ``Daily Issues'' and distributed to Turkish daily newspapers. ``Our democracy will be strengthened if political formations that will destroy democracy by abolishing secularism are not allowed,'' the mass-circulation daily Sabah quoted the pamphlet as saying. ``No democracy would have to allow a political formation that uses democratic means to destroy itself,'' said the pamphlet. The pamphlet will also be seen as a warning to secularist politicians to overcome squabbling that has seen five governments fall since 1995. Turkey has been without an established government since November, when the conservative-led coalition of Mesut Yilmaz was toppled in a parliamentary vote over corruption allegations. Efforts to find a new government have been greatly hampered by personal rivalries between civilian politicians. Veteran leftist leader Bulent Ecevit, prime minister designate, is expected to submit a cabinet list to President Suleyman Demirel Monday or Tuesday. But the military fear Virtue, the biggest party in parliament, could benefit electorally from the disarray among secularist parties. If Ecevit succeeds in forming a government, it would serve probably only until elections scheduled for April. Virtue hopes to use these polls to make its claim to a role in government irresistible. The military, the most popular institution in Turkish life, plays the formally established role of guardian of Turkish democracy and has three times in the last 40 years overthrown civilian governments it considered had lost control. Turkey's secularist establishment believes the Islamists want to replace overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey's secularist constitution with one based on Islamic principles. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ A<>E<>R The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. 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