From: serdar@fawlty8.eng.monash.edu.au (Serdar Boztas)
Subject: Re: News/haber (forwarding)
Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 23:39:50 GMT

senel@vuse.vanderbilt.edu (Hakan) forwarded a Guardian article
which contains some misconceptions and half-truths as well as
some valid observations. 

> Subject:      STATESMAN WHO MADE TURKEY A CRUCIAL PLAYER (April 1991)

>STATESMAN WHO MADE TURKEY A CRUCIAL PLAYER
>Jonathan Eyal

>Within  a  short  time,  Mr  Ozal  overturned  most  of  Turkey's
>traditional policies. He forged a  new political party and pushed
>the  army  back  to  the barracks.  He  swiftly  transformed  the
>presidency into  Turkey's real power base.  Crucially, he decided
>that the INTERNAL  DEBATE on whether his country  belonged to the
>East or the West was outdated. Turkey belonged to both.

Mr Ozal's party was one of the three 'sanctioned' parties in the limited
political atmosphere after the 1980 military coup. It benefited from
the fact that all the existing political parties and leadership were
banned.

As for the real power base being the presidency, it is certainly true 
that there is more power allocated to the president in the 1983 
constitution. On the other hand, it has become routine for Ozal to
exceed the limits of the constitution since 1989 when he was elected
president. He still keeps an active interest and is involved in the
in day to day affairs of the Motherland Party of which he is the
founder even though he has resigned from the Party as demanded by
the constitution. 

As for being the person who *transformed* the presidency into a real
power base, this statement is clearly false. It was General Evren who
did this and who was the president between 1980 and 1989. Ozal was the
prime minister. 

>Mr Ozal's support  for the war against Iraq  was heavily disputed
>at home.  The President  lost ministers, one  chief of  staff and
>countless supporters. Yet he  persevered by lessening restriction
>on Turkey's five million Kurds  and by involving his country even
>more deeply in the region.

Again, the president is not the head of cabinet and those are not 'his'
ministers. The word 'chief of staff' can also be misunderstood in this
context, it was the military chief of staff who resigned not the
president's 'chief of staff' which does not exist in the sense used 
in presidential (e.g. American) regimes. Turkey's current regime is a
mixture  of parliamentary and presidential system.

With the Demirel cabinet in office, it is more and more the prime
minister and his cabinet who run the country, including foreign
policy which was Ozal's favourite stomping ground. In any case, under
the present constitution, it is the cabinet and ultimately the prime
minister who is accountable for the execution of policy. Mr Ozal simply
wants to have the power to make policy without the responsibility to
parliament and the courts-- a state of affairs he no doubt enjoys. 

Serdar

-- 
Inhabited by absurd fears,  they only discuss  the puerilities with which 
every fool is familiar, and dare not, by turning a bold hand to the human 
heart, offer its gigantic idiosyncrasies to our views.     Sade, 'Justine'
Serdar Boztas \\ serdar@fawlty1.eng.monash.edu.au \\ +(61)3-565-5722