November 11, 2008. Copyright 2008, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Recep Tayyip Erdogan: Sceptics search for a secret agenda
By Joanna Griffin

LONDON, November 11, Graphic News:  Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan enjoys widespread popularity among ordinary Turks but still has much to prove: this year his AKP party overturned legal claims that it is trying to sneak in Islamism through the back door and several MPs are embroiled in corruption scandals. Erdogan could be forgiven for wishing he could just get on with the job.

Erdogan, who has been associated with hardline Islamic views but now casts himself as a moderate conservative, has his sights set on a new association of Caucasian states to safeguard Turkish national interests -- a group he insists is linked by geography not  politics. As he knows, keeping both East and West happy goes with the territory.

Born in Rize on Turkey's Black Sea coast in 1954, Erdogan was the son of a coastguard and as a teenager, sold lemonade on the streets to make ends meet. He studied management and was briefly a semi-professional footballer before becoming mayor of the capital in 1994. He made the city greener but some opposed his "no alcohol zones". In 1998 he was jailed for almost a year for inciting religious hatred by reading out a poem.

Erdogan, who first became leader after his party's sweeping election victory in 2002, has won praise for modernizing the country and setting it on the path towards membership of the European Union. His popularity has grown as he has presided over a period of growth and stability. However, some still suspect him of secretly plotting to abandon secularism.

Some Turks find it unacceptable that the representative of their country is not better educated and, for example, speaks no foreign languages, but many more express their pride that their prime minister shares their simple background.
/ENDS