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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.
| Preceded byBülend Ulusu | Prime Minister of Turkey 1983–1989 |
Succeeded byYıldırım Akbulut |
| Preceded byKenan Evren | President of Turkey 1989–1993 |
Succeeded bySüleyman Demirel |
External Sources
 Presidents of Turkey | ||
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| Presidents |  | |
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