Gul, Abdullah

(1950- )

   The top lieutenant of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Gul became Turkey's 11th president (and first with Islamist roots) on 28 August 2007 following a tumultuous national confrontation between the AK Party and its secular opposition over who should be Turkey's next president. The issue was settled by the AK Party's dramatic electoral triumph in the national elections of July 2007. Previously, Gul had served briefly as prime minister before Erdogan was eligible, then as deputy prime minister and foreign minister.

   As a member of the AK Party, Gul sees Islam as the solution to the Kurdish problem in Turkey. Since he became president, Gul has seemingly taken a more understanding position toward the Kurds than Erdogan, stressing that the solution to the problem lay in the further democratization of the country and not through military means. He also admitted that the Kurds have been discriminated against in the past with regard to speaking their own language but added that compared with the past, Kurds are much better off today. In May 2009, Gul declared that the Kurdish issue was Turkey's "most pressing problem" but that it now had "an historical opportunity" to solve it. Of course, it remains to be seen how successful Gul will be in dealing with the Kurdish problem.