Abdullah Gul

Abdullah Gul was born on October 29, 1950 in Kasseri Province, central T\u00fcrkiye. Received a degree in economics from Istanbul University. Afterwards, I went to London, UK to continue my Master's and Doctoral degrees in Economics. After returning to China, he established the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Sacaria. From 1983 to 1991, worked as an expert at the Islamic Development Bank. In 1991, he was elected as a representative of the Prosperity Party in the province of Caselli. Member of the Planning and Budget Committee of the Parliament from 1991 to 1995. Elected as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Parliament in 1995. From June 1996 to June 1997, he was the Minister of State of T\u00fcrkiye. From November 2002 to March 2003, he served as the Prime Minister. In March 2003, he was appointed as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. Elected as President in August 2007. Gul has always been committed to democratic reform. During his tenure as Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Gul pursued an active foreign policy and basically succeeded in balancing T\u00fcrkiye's traditional Western led foreign policy priorities with T\u00fcrkiye's new interests in the Middle East and the Muslim world. His subsequent presidential election was strongly opposed by fanatical supporters of secularism in T\u00fcrkiye, and was initially blocked by the Constitutional Court for fear of his Islamic political background. In 1998, Gul joined the Virtue Party after being banned for anti secular activities. When the party split into traditionalists and modernists in 2000, Gul and Erdogan advocated for the necessity of reform and moderation together. And joined the moderate Justice and Development Party (AKP) founded by Erdogan in 2001. After the 2007 general election, he was elected as the first president of T\u00fcrkiye with an Islamic background.