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Turkey's First Islamist Prime Minister Dies

   VOA News  February 27, 2011
   Necmettin  Erbakan,  a  former  prime  minister who led Turkey's first
   Islamist  government  between  1996  and  1997,  speaks  during a news
   conference in Ankara, Turkey (File Photo - April 10, 2009)

Photo: AP

   Necmettin  Erbakan,  a  former  prime  minister who led Turkey's first
   Islamist  government  between  1996  and  1997,  speaks  during a news
   conference in Ankara, Turkey (File Photo - April 10, 2009)

   Turkey's first Islamist prime minister and the leader of the country's
   Islamist movement has died.
   Necmettin Erbakan was 85 when he succumbed to heart failure on Sunday.
   Turkey's current prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, praised Erbakan
   "as  a  teacher  and  a  leader."  He  said Mr. Erbakan will always be
   remembered "with gratitude."
   Erbakan,  who  was a professor of engineering before entering politics
   in 1969, served only one year as prime minister. He was forced to step
   down by the Turkish military in 1997 and in 1998 his Welfare Party was
   banned from politics for five years for undermining secularism.
   The party was later reconstituted into Prime Minister Erdogan's ruling
   Justice and Development Party (AKP).