Abdullah Gül (born 29 October 1950) is a Turkish politician. He is currently the deputy prime minister and foreign minister of Turkey.
Born in Kayseri, Gül studied economics at the University of Istanbul and wrote his dissertation there. During his graduate education, he studied for two years in London and Exeter. He pursued an academic career afterwards and worked at the Sakarya University, collaborating in the establishment of a department for industrial engineering and teaching management courses.
Between 1983 and 1991, he worked at the Islamic Development Bank (IDB). In 1991, Gül became a lecturer in international management. Furthermore he was elected a member of the Turkish parliament for "Refah Partisi" (RP, "Welfare Party") as a member from Kayseri.
In the years 1991 to 1995, Gül was a member of the planning and budget committee of the Turkish parliament. In 1995, he was re-elected and was member of the committee for issues in foreign politics until 2001.
In the 54th government from 1996 to 1997, he served as Minister of State and government spokesman.
Following the outlawing of the RP in 1999, Gül was re-elected to parliament a third time as member of "Fazilet Partisi" (FP, "the Virtue Party" ).
On May 14, 2000, he narrowly lost the elections for president of the FP. Despite losing, this was still regarded as a remarkable achievement for Gül. After the outlawing of the FP, Gül took an important position in the direction of the "Yenilikçi Hareket" political movement ("renovation movement"), which merged in August 2001 with the party it co-founded "Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi" (AKP, the "Justice and Development Party"). He was responsible for the judicial and political issues, which was the key element in his election as vice-chairman of the party.
On November 3, 2002, Gül was again elected to the parliament as one of the members from Kayseri. Two weeks later he was asked to form the 58th government. He took the post of prime minister and formed a government which was to serve as a transitional government. The goal was to make a constitutional amendment, in order to permit Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the chairman of the AKP to become prime minister (as Erdoğan could not be elected to parliament because of his punishment), thanks to a by-election round in the south-eastern Anatolian province of Siirt. On March 14, 2003, Erdoğan took over the post of prime minister from Abdullah Gül and appointed him as his deputy prime minister and foreign minister.
Gül was perceived to be somewhat out of his depth as Prime Minister, particularly in negotiations with the United States surrounding any Turkish participation in the Iraq war. However, he rapidly found his feet as foreign minister, becoming the key player not only in Turkey's attempts to receive an accession date for the European Union, but also in its attempts to improve relations with Syria and maintain its special relationship with the Turkic speaking countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus.
On February 6, 2007, Gül flew to the United States to meet with Condoleezza Rice and President Bush in order to dissuade a law from reaching the floor of the US House of Representatives that would recognize the deaths of Armenians in 1915 as the Armenian Genocide. The law is expected to pass if it reaches the floor in March. President Bush has agreed to make it difficult to pass.
Abdullah Gül is married to Hayrünisa and has three children, two sons named Mehmet Emre and Ahmet Munir, and a daughter named Kübra. He is a dedicated fan of the football club Beşiktaş J.K..
Mr.Gül will most probably be the 11th president of Turkish Republic as Prime Minister Mr.Erdogan announced his candidacy on April 24th, 07. However, CHP will not join the voting and take the case to the constitutional court.
