Ahmet Özal
Ahmet Özal | |
|---|---|
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| Member of the Grand National Assembly | |
| In office 18 April 1999 – 3 November 2002 | |
| Constituency | Malatya (1999) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 3 December 1955 Ankara, Turkey |
| Spouse | Asuman Duran (m. 2022) |
| Children | 2 |
| Parent(s) | Turgut Özal Semra Özal |
| Relatives | Özal family |
| Alma mater | North Carolina State University |
Tevfik Ahmet Özal (born 3 December 1955) is a Turkish politician, the son of former Turkish President and Prime Minister Turgut Özal and a member of the Özal family. He has been an MP, and co-founded the Uzan Group and later the Özal Group.
Career
[edit]After graduating from the North Carolina State University he worked at the International Monetary Fund and in international banking from 1979 to 1988. In 1989 he co-founded (with Cem Uzan) Turkey's first private television station, "Magic Box" (now Star TV).[1]
Özal was elected to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in 1999[2] as an independent; he joined the Motherland Party in 2002,[3] and was the party's candidate for Mayor of Istanbul in the March 2009 local elections (gaining less than 1% of the vote). Later, he would become Deputy Chairman of the Democratic Party, after the Motherland Party merged with it in October 2009.[4]
Since taking public office, he has adamantly stated that he feels his late father, former Turkish President and Prime Minister Turgut Özal, was assassinated.[5] He has suggested that the Soviet Union might have been responsible, because of Turgut's efforts to unite the Turkic republics of Central Asia.[6] In 2013 Özal said that several months before the 1988 assassination attempt on Turgut, Turgut had survived a plane incident in which his official plane lost an engine and crash-landed (Ahmet was on board at the time). The manufacturer later reported a 95% probability that the plane would explode under the circumstances present.[7]
He is on the Board of Trustees of Turgut Özal University, named after his father.[1]
On 23 July 2016, in the course of the 2016 Turkish purges, the university was shut down by the Turkish government among other 15 universities[8] due to its alleged ties with the Gülen movement.[9]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Turgut Özal University, Board Of Trustees Archived 2013-06-07 at the Wayback Machine, accessed 2 July 2013
- ^ "Ahmet Ozal". Sabah. Retrieved 8 September 2011.
- ^ Hurriyet Daily News, 4 April 2002, Ahmet Ozal joins ANAP
- ^ "Ahmet Özal Başbakan'la ne konuştu?". Sabah. Retrieved 8 September 2011.
- ^ Hurriyet Daily News, 27 December 2012, Late president Özal’s son still not convinced
- ^ Today's Zaman, 15 May 2006, Ahmet Ozal: Soviet Union Killed my Father Archived 2016-03-05 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Today's Zaman, 24 April 2013, Özal's little known near plane crash finds way into indictment Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Fifteen universities closed in purge after failed coup - University World News". www.universityworldnews.com. Retrieved 2016-10-27.
- ^ "657 Sayılı Kanun Hükmünde Kararname". Resmi Gazete. 1 September 2016.
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- Deputies of Malatya
- Democrat Party (Turkey, current) politicians
- Motherland Party (Turkey) politicians
- Living people
- Özal family
- Children of presidents of Turkey
- Children of prime ministers of Turkey
- 1955 births
- North Carolina State University alumni
- Members of the 21st Parliament of Turkey
- Turkish politician stubs