Hikmet Çetin
Encyclopedia
Hikmet Çetin is a Turkish
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...

 politician former minister of foreign affairs and was leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP) for a short time. He served also as the Speaker of the Turkish Grand National Assembly.

Early life

He was born in Lice
Lice, Turkey
Lice is a district of Diyarbakır Province in Turkey. The population is 9,644 as of 2010. It is located from the capital, Diyarbakır....

, a town in the southeastern Diyarbakır Province
Diyarbakir Province
Diyarbakır Province is a province in eastern Turkey. The province covers an area of 15,355 km² and the population is 1,528,958. The provincial capital is Diyarbakir...

. After completing primary school in his hometown and high school in Ankara
Ankara
Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the country's second largest city after Istanbul. The city has a mean elevation of , and as of 2010 the metropolitan area in the entire Ankara Province had a population of 4.4 million....

, he graduated in 1960 with a B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 degree in Economics and Finance from Ankara University
Ankara University
Ankara University is a public university in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. It was the first higher education institution founded in the Turkish Republic....

, School of Political Sciences.

After completing his education, Hikmet Çetin joined the State Planning Organization (Devlet Planlama Teşkilatı, DPT). Shortly after, he was sent abroad and also to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, where he received his M.A.
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 in "Economics of development" from Williams College
Williams College
Williams College is a private liberal arts college located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams. Originally a men's college, Williams became co-educational in 1970. Fraternities were also phased out during this...

 in Williamstown, Massachusetts
Williamstown, Massachusetts
Williamstown is a town in Berkshire County, in the northwest corner of Massachusetts. It shares a border with Vermont to the north and New York to the west. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 7,754 at the 2010 census...

, USA. In 1968, he did research work on "Planning models" at the Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, USA. After returning home, he completed his military service in 1970 and worked as the head of Economics Planning Department at the DPT until 1977. During this time, he was a part-time lecturer at the Middle East Technical University
Middle East Technical University
Middle East Technical University is a public technical university located in Ankara, Turkey...

 in Ankara.

Political career

Hikmet Çetin stepped into politics in the 1977 general elections
Turkish general election, 1977
General elections were held in Turkey on 5 June 1977. Elections took place in the middle of a political race between the right wing party AP and the left wing party CHP. With the charismatic leadership of Bülent Ecevit, CHP managed to beat one of the symbol figures of the conservative politics of...

 as deputy of Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

 from the Republican People's Party
Republican People's Party (Turkey)
The Republican People's Party is a centre-left Kemalist political party in Turkey. It is the oldest political party of Turkey and is currently Main Opposition in the Grand National Assembly. The Republican People's Party describes itself as "a modern social-democratic party, which is faithful to...

 (CHP). Between 1978 and 1979, he served as Minister of State and later as Deputy Prime Minister in the cabinet of the Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit
Bülent Ecevit
Mustafa Bülent Ecevit was a Turkish politician, poet, writer and journalist, who was the leader of Republican People's Party , later of the Democratic Left Party and four-time Prime Minister of Turkey.- Personal life :...

. Following the 1980 military coup that banned the existing political parties, Hikmet Çetin became an advisor in planning to the Government of Yemen
Yemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....

.

He returned to politics following his election to the parliament in 1987 as deputy of Diyarbakır from the Social Democratic Populist Party
Social Democratic Populist Party (Turkey)
The Social Democratic Populist Party was the name of a former Turkish left social-democratic party, which resulted from the fusion, in 1985, of the Social Democracy Party of Erdal İnönü and the People's Party of Aydın Güven Gürkan, both founded in 1983 with the return to democracy after the...

 (Sosyal Demokrat Halkçı Parti, SHP), the successor of the banned Republican People's Party. He served in the board of SHP and became its Secretary General. Hikmet Çetin was elected in 1991
Turkish general election, 1991
General elections were held in Turkey on 20 October 1991. It was the first by the ruling Motherland Party to be contested without its founding leader, Turgut Özal, who had become Turkish president two years previously. The result was a swing against Özal's former party in favour of its fierce...

 for the third time to Parliament as deputy of Gaziantep
Gaziantep
Gaziantep , Ottoman Turkish: Ayintab) previously and still informally called Antep; ʻayn tāb is a city in southeast Turkey and amongst the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. The city is located 185 kilometres northeast of Adana and 127 kilometres by road north of Aleppo, Syria...

 from SHP.

He was appointed in 1991 Minister of Foreign Affairs in the coalition cabinet of Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel
Süleyman Demirel
Sami Süleyman Gündoğdu Demirel, better known as Süleyman Demirel , is a Turkish politician who served as Prime Minister seven times and was the ninth President of Turkey.-Life:Demirel was born in İslamköy, a town in Isparta Province...

. He kept his seat in the coalition cabinet of Tansu Çiller
Tansu Çiller
Tansu Penbe Çiller is a Turkish economist and politician. She was Turkey's first and only female Prime Minister.- Early career :She is the daughter of a Turkish governor of Bilecik province during the 1950s. She graduated from the School of Economics at Robert College after finishing the American...

, who took over the government leadership from Demirel after his rise to the Presidency. Hikmet Çetin resigned from his post on July 27, 1994.

In 1995, the two left wing parties, SHP and CHP decided to merge, and their general assemblies agreed on the leadership of Hikmet Çetin. He was elected chairman on February 18, 1995. At the party convention held on September 9, 1995, he did not run for the chair of the Republican People's Party again and resigned.

Hikmet Çetin retook his seat in the Parliament in the 1995 general elections
Turkish general election, 1995
Turkey's 13th general election was held on Sunday December 24, 1995, triggered after the newly reformed Republican People's Party withdrew from a coalition with the True Path Party...

 and was elected as the Speaker of the Parliament on October 16, 1997 and occupied this position until April 18, 1999.

Diplomatic duty

He was appointed on November 19, 2003 as NATO Secretary General's Senior Civilian Representative in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

, the highest-level political representative of NATO in this country, where it has held the command of the International Security Assistance Force
International Security Assistance Force
The International Security Assistance Force is a NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan established by the United Nations Security Council on 20 December 2001 by Resolution 1386 as envisaged by the Bonn Agreement...

 (ISAF) since August 11, 2003. On January 26, 2004, he took office in Kabul
Kabul
Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...

, and served two consecutive terms until August 24, 2006.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK