Former Turkish prime minister Bulent Ecevit dies

Ankara: Former Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, who sent troops into Cyprus in 1974 and won European Union candidate status for his country in 1999, died on Sunday aged 81, Anatolian state news agency said.

Ecevit, a leftist nationalist and poetry lover whose political career spanned half a century, suffered a stroke on May 18 after attending the funeral of a top judge slain by an suspected Islamist gunman. Ecevit had been in a coma ever since.

With his trademark cap, indigo blue shirts and clipped moustache, the softly-spoken Ecevit was widely respected in Turkey for his old world courtesy and his personal integrity and modesty in a political culture plagued by corruption.

Born in Istanbul on May 28, 1925, Ecevit was educated at London and Harvard universities. Before entering parliament in 1957, he was known as a writer and poet, translating T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound into Turkish. He also studied Sanskrit.

He started his political career in 1957 as a staunchly left-wing lawmaker, but later became an American ally, a transformation that mirrored changes in his country which has gone from a largely insular nation to one that is increasingly opening to the West.

Feisty to the end, he told the English-language New Anatolian newspaper earlier this year that Turkey's current ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has Islamist roots, posed a threat to the country's secular order.

"I believe our regime is under serious threat," he said. Ecevit said Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government bore some responsibility for the shooting of the judge in an Ankara courtroom by a man reportedly protesting over Turkey's ban on the Islamic headscarf in public offices.

"The government openly encouraged those terrorists (by also supporting an easing of the headscarf ban)... The unfortunate attack is proof that Turkey will face a very serious situation unless the government changes its mentality," Ecevit said.

Ecevit's three-party coalition lost power to Erdogan's AKP in a November 2002 general election following a devastating financial crisis that wiped out 10 per cent of Turkey's economy.

Ecevit, who served five times as premier and was imprisoned following a 1980 military coup, ordered the 1974 invasion of Cyprus that led to the division of the Mediterranean island. He was in power during the 1999 capture of Kurdish guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan.

That won him plaudits at home as the "Hero of Cyprus", though the island remains divided and the Turkish Cypriots' enclave in the north is recognised only by Ankara.

In the New Anatolian interview, Ecevit made clear he had no regrets about Cyprus, saying the island was better off divided.

President Ahmet Necdet Sezer issued a statement praising Ecevit for his political ethics, manners and intellect, and for upholding Turkey's secular values.

"The Turkish people will always respectfully remember his services to the country," Sezer said.