Word: gul
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...interview with TIME, Turkey's Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, whose efforts to become President were opposed by the military because his wife wears a head scarf, said he plans to stand for the job again if the party is returned to power. "What we have done in the last five years speaks for itself," he says, noting, for example, his party's move for Turkey to adopt the European Union's body of law. "Is this an Eastern country's legal system? Is this Shari'a? No, it is the European laws! We are upgrading this country...
...highest proportion among industrialized economies. And political parties are making tremendous efforts to woo the young. An attempt by the AKP to lower the age of eligibility for a seat in parliament from 30 to 25 just narrowly missed being implemented. "We are forcing them to get involved," Gul told TIME. "They are the future of this country." Mark Parris, a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey now at the Brookings Institution in Washington, says 2007 is pivotal: "This could define the kind of country that Turkey is for a generation...
...after 40 years of waiting would be a credit to any government. Instead, critics stress the alleged long-term Islamist agenda of the party's leaders. The current e-mail and blogging campaign by the young Istanbul Kemalists, for example, is focusing on claims that leaders like Erdogan and Gul are conservative Muslims who have in the past flirted with political Islam...
...protested the law, picketing the university gates for two years, but eventually gave up. She headed to the U.S. to study instead, but returned after 9/11. She now works for a private foundation that operates Muslim orphanages around the world. For her, the religious values of Erdogan and Gul are reassuring: "We feel more comfortable with them." How such sentiments will play out at the polls remains unclear. Public opinion surveys put support for the AKP at 35-42% vs. 18-25% for the CHP and 15-25% for the MHP, an overtly nationalist party that has benefited from Turkish...
...requirements of E.U. accession, whether or not the Europeans are willing to let Turkey join. The party also promises to nearly double personal annual incomes to $10,000, and raise national gdp from $400 billion to $800 billion by the end of its next five-year term. "Then," says Gul, "I don't think France or Austria or anyone else will be able to ignore Turkey...