| The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07. |
| |
Erdo an, Recep Tayyip |
| |
| |
(r jp´ t yp´ âr´d än) (KEY) , 1954–, Turkish politician. He was educated at Marmara Univ., where he met Necmettin Erbakan, who went on to head the Islamist Welfare party and serve (1996–7) as prime minister. Active in the Welfare party by the mid-1980s, Erdoan was elected mayor of Istanbul in 1994. In 1998 he was convicted of inciting religious for reading a poem with martial Islamic images, he served four months in prison. In 2001, Erdoan and others found the Justice and Development party as the successor to the banned (1998) Welfare party. In the 2002 elections the new party won an overwhelming majority in parliament, but Erdoan was banned from running because of his 1998 conviction. After the constitution was amended, Erdoan was elected (2003) and became prime minister. In 2007 the Justice and Development party again won control of parliament. Erdoan has moved from the strongly Islamist positions he once espoused to more mainstream conservative positions, and his government has pursued reforms required for Turkey to enter the European Union. |
| |
| | | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2007 Columbia University Press. |
|
|
