Türkiye on Monday will mark the 30th anniversary of the passing of Turgut Özal. The eighth president of the republic will be remembered by his gravesite in Istanbul, but an investigation into his death remains inconclusive. Özal’s son Ahmet has long claimed that his father might have been poisoned, though a forensic investigation, held long after his death, could not diagnose the exact cause of the death, which was announced as a heart attack at the time.
Özal is credited with a series of reforms to modernize Türkiye in the post-coup era. An electrical engineer hailing from a Kurdish family in eastern Türkiye, Özal switched to politics after rising in the ranks of Turkish bureaucracy. After a stint as a Prime Ministry adviser, Özal further made a name for himself as one of the architects of the “Jan. 24 decisions,” a series of economic steps for the liberalization of the Turkish economy. Serving for two years as deputy prime minister after the 1980 coup, he quit this post to found his Motherland Party (ANAP), which became a stalwart of center-right politics in Türkiye. He served as prime minister between 1983 and 1991, an unusually long period for a prime minister in a country whose history is marked by coalition governments.
His policies catering to the middle-class community endeared him to the masses, while Özal is also credited with the gradual removal of restrictions on the Turkish economy and leftovers of the pre-coup period. Özal survived an assassination attempt in 1988 at the hands of a self-styled nationalist. Like his death, the exact reason for the assassination attempt is not known. Although the assassin’s ties to a corrupt businessperson were revealed, the investigation was closed, apparently due to pressure from a powerful general.
Özal had just returned from a 12-day tour of five countries when he succumbed to an alleged heart attack on April 17, 1993, at the age of 66. In 2012, Özal’s grave was exhumed upon allegations that he was murdered. Yet, the Chief Prosecutor’s Office in the capital Ankara overseeing the probe announced later that the exact cause of death could not be determined. His death at a time of the alleged realization of his plans to end PKK terrorism further raised the doubts that he died of natural causes. Özal reportedly launched the first "civilian" initiative against PKK terrorism, which was tackled by the military for a long time. Like current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Özal also pursued a reconciliation process with the Kurdish community to end the so-called "Kurdish question" that helped the PKK's efforts to gain legitimacy. A lawmaker from a political party affiliated with the PKK claimed in 1992 that Özal pledged to issue a general pardon for people jailed for links to the PKK. He had also assigned a lawmaker from his party to draft a report for resolving the issue. The report has called for the restoration of Kurds' rights that would "end the public support for the PKK." That lawmaker, Adnan Kahveci, was killed in a suspicious traffic accident two months before Özal's death. Özal's steps were revolutionary as they came at the height of PKK violence.
After his death, Türkiye stepped up its counterterrorism efforts, indiscriminately targeting Kurds deemed a threat, further helping the PKK's agenda of exploiting the Kurdish community and recruiting more into its ranks in their fight for so-called Kurdish self-rule.
