page_title: Kâzım Karabekir
section_title: Political career
hierarchical_section_title: Kâzım Karabekir / Political career
caption_attribution_description: English: Kâzım Karabekir as speaker of the Turkish parliament (circa 1946-1948)
context_page_description: Musa Kâzım Karabekir was a Turkish general and politician. He was the commander of the Eastern Army of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I and served as Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey before his death.
context_section_description: After the defeat of Greek forces in Western Anatolia, the Republic of Turkey was proclaimed. Kâzım Karabekir Pasha moved to Ankara in October 1922 and continued to serve in the parliament as Deputy of Edirne. He was still the acting commander of the Eastern Army when he was elected Deputy of Constantinople on 29 June 1923. Six months later, he was appointed Inspector of the First Army. The received the highest Turkish award by the parliament, the "Order of Independence" for his meritorious and distinguished service in the military and politics during the War of Independence. He retired from military service in October 1924 and then entered politics. 
  Karabekir had differences of opinion with Mustafa Kemal about the realization of Atatürk's Reforms, one of the most important being the abolition of caliphate. Even though he agreed with Mustafa Kemal on the subject, he did not agree with him on immediate action. For Karabekir, the timing was inappropriate because British forces stood at the border of southeastern Turkey and claimed Kirkuk, now in Iraq. Karabekir did not believe that the caliphate should be abolished before the was solved. Kurds, more radical in their Shafi Sunni beliefs, began to rise against the government because they thought that the government would abolish religion after it ended the caliphate. Struggling with the rebellion, Turkey agreed to leave Kirkuk to Iraq, which was under the British mandate. Such conflicts prompted tensions between Karabekir and Mustafa Kemal.
  On 17 November 1924, several politicians around Karabekir and Ali Fuat Cebesoy founded the political movement Progressive Republican Party (Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkası), which had several prominent current and former military commanders in his members. Afterwards, the party's recent members were blamed for the Sheikh Said rebellion and the assassination attempt made against Mustafa Kemal in İzmir.The party was closed on 5 June 1925 by the government, and Karabekir was imprisoned by the Independence Tribunals with many of his party members but later acquitted and released. Following those developments, all relations were broken between Karabekir and Mustafa Kemal.
  Retiring temporarily from politics, Karabekir devoted himself to writing his memoirs of the Turkish War of Independence and Atatürk's Reforms. After Mustafa Kemal died in 1938, Karabekir's close friend İsmet İnönü rehabilitated him.
  In 1939, Kâzım Karabekir returned to politics and re-entered parliament as an MP from Istanbul. He was elected speaker of the parliament on 5 August 1946. He died in office at the age of 66 on 26 January 1948 in Ankara after a heart attack. His remains were later relocated to the Turkish State Cemetery in Ankara.
  Kâzım Karabekir was survived by his wife İclal and three daughters Hayat, Emel, and Timsal. The four-story mansion in the Erenköy quarter of Kadıköy district in Istanbul, where he lived for almost 15 years, was converted into a museum in 2005.
caption: Kâzım Karabekir as the speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey
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