GLOBAL CONNECTIONS: the Near/Middle East
July 1996: Necmettin Erbakan's coalition government signals Turkey's first turn toward Islamic politics since Atat¸rk's era.

Turkey's first Islamist prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, leader of Turkey's Welfare Party (Refah), is forced to step down in 1997, and the party itself outlawed, after being judged a threat to Turkey's secular constitution. In 2002 he is sentenced to more than two years in prison for embezzling party political funds.

WWW Necmettin Erbakan
http://i-cias.com/e.o/erbakan.htm

A brief biography of Necmettin Erbakan
WWW Necmettin Erbakan
http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/301.cfm

A brief biography of Necmettin Erbakan
PBS Turkish "Sea Change"
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east /september96/ciller_9-24.html

NewsHour talks to Turkey's foreign minister, Tansu Ciller, about the Kurdish crisis and her country's oft misunderstood role in Middle East power politics.