Posted on 11/16/2002 11:44:26 AM PST by knighthawk
ANKARA (Reuters) - Abdullah Gul, a strong advocate of Turkish European ambitions and close U.S. ties, has been installed as prime minister as his party announced sweeping plans for economic and social reform to meet EU standards.
Gul takes office with NATO member Turkey facing critical weeks. Its crisis-plagued economy is poised between recovery and relapse and it is pushing hard to win a date for European Union entry talks at an EU December summit.
"It's time to start work. From this hour onward it's time to mobilise and work night and day to solve the problems of our people," a smiling Gul said on Saturday after President Ahmet Necdet Sezer invited him to form a government.
"The government will be ready by Monday," he said.
Gul was the favourite of financial markets fearful for the future of a $16 billion (10 billion pounds) IMF crisis pact. To the United States, which may soon look to him for use of air bases in any attack on neighbouring Iraq, he is also a familiar face.
Though a strong figure in his own right, he will inevitably stand somewhat in the shadow of the charismatic Justice and Development Party (AKP) leader Tayyip Erdogan, who chose him.
A conviction for Islamist sedition disqualified Erdogan from November 3 polls that devastated established parties blamed for economic crisis and graft and gave the one-year-old AKP a huge majority. Absent from parliament, he cannot be prime minister.
Erdogan, however, made his leading role abundantly clear by announcing a programme of economic and social reform at a news conference held as Gul visited the Presidential palace.
"We are building a new world and this new world will bring the East and West together in Turkey," Erdogan declared.
The AKP grew from the moderate wing of a now banned Islamist party. It presents itself as pro-Western and pro-market though many staunch secularists suspect it harbours Islamist elements.
SECULARIST SUSPICIONS
The moves Erdogan outlined looked generally set to delight the IMF. Some mark departures from the IMF pact but Erdogan said he was sure agreement could be reached with the fund.
He vowed rapid rights reforms including "immediate" new penalties to deter torture, long an obstacle to EU ambitions.
Some proposals hit at the core of Turkish life. He unveiled plans to reform the education system, a sensitive area where Turkey's secular establishment will be watching closely for any moves that could water down the country's secular principles.
Priority would go to privatisation, tax reform and selling the assets of banks that folded during recent financial turmoil.
He also promised a shake-up of a crumbling hospital network and reform of a loss-making social security system.
The new government's energetic action on the EU, including a six-city tour of the Union next week by Erdogan, contrasts with the often painfully antagonistic approach of the outgoing government. But there may still be strong resistance to giving Turkey a talks date until reforms have been clearly implemented.
Pierre Lellouche, head of the French delegation at a NATO Parliamentary Assembly meeting in Istanbul, said the West faced an onslaught by Muslim extremists and needed to "help modern Muslim countries to develop a modern tolerant form of Islam".
"If we eliminate this hope in the one Muslim nation that has a history of secularism (Turkey)...then we'll fabricate ourselves an antiwestern Islam in this country...This is an unwise policy," he said.
A trained economist, Gul is a close confidant of Erdogan. He speaks good English, is well known in Ankara diplomatic circles, and boasts a lively sense of humour.
He was a member of Turkey's first Islamist-led government, forced from power after a year in 1997 by an army-led pressure campaign. But his statements were measured and, unlike Erdogan, he never fell foul of the courts.
"Gul has proven himself in his sound friendship with Erdogan. He is the dependable man who would hand over the prime ministry to Erdogan when the time comes," commentator Guneri Civaoglu wrote in Milliyet newspaper.
Erdogan might be able to enter parliament next year in a by-election if a court accepts his appeal in January for the lifting of his political ban. He would then be expected to take over the prime minister's office from Gul.
Gul has shown keen awareness of the suspicions his party faces. "We are rational people first and foremost," he said in a recent interview. "We are not militant Islamists.
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