CILLER, TANSU

(1946- )

   Tansu Ciller, Suleyman Demirel's successor as the leader of the right-wing True Path Party, became Turkey's first female prime minister from 1993 to 1995. At first she appeared to take a conciliatory approach to the Kurdish issue in Turkey but soon reversed herself and pursued an increasingly hard line. In 1994, she banned the pro-Kurdish Demokrasi Partisi (Democracy Party, DEP) and imprisoned several of its members of parliament, including Leyla Zana. Evidence indicates that she also was willing to use the so-called Hizbullah (Turkey) and other criminal actors to murder even peaceful Kurdish supporters. Despite previous promises not to, she opportunistically joined the short-lived Islamist Refah coalition of Necmettin Erbakan in She left the government when the coalition resigned in June Despite charges of corruption, however, she remained one of the leading Turkish politicians until her party failed to win enough votes even to remain in parliament in the landslide victory of the AK Partisi (AKP) of 3 November 2002. She then resigned from her party's leadership and left politics.