Turkey: A Polite Distance

When Premier Suleyman Demirel, 42, swept to power 14 months ago, his victory was credited largely to Turkey's growing disdain for the eager flirtation with Russia carried on by his chief opponent, foxy former Premier Ismet Inönü, 83. In recent months, however, Demirel has begun some mild flirting of his own. He has received Rumanian Premier Ion Gheorghe Maurer and Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivan Bashev, sent official delegations to Poland, Russia and Albania. Last week Demirel welcomed his biggest Communist visitor yet: Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin, the first Russian Premier ever to visit Turkey.

At first glance, all this might seem to be a radical departure for a man of pronounced pro-West sympathies. But in fact Demirel was simply making gestures that would muffle the critics in Turkey who feel he is too friendly to the West. An ambitious politician with big plans for development and reform, Demirel took office with one stiff strike against him: he was the political heir of ex-Strongman Adnan Menderes, whom the army overthrew in 1960 and executed. As a result, the army was at first suspicious of him, and the left-of-center opposition, led by Inönü, did its noisiest best to discredit him as a lackey of the U.S. For months the opposition man aged to block every government bill, since Demirel lacked a majority in the upper house of Parliament. Finally, the new Premier undercut Inönü by softening his stand against the East, wooed two independent Senators into his party, and won the full parliamentary majority that he had lacked at the start. Along the way, he also broadened his support among military men, including Turkish President Cevdet Sunay, a career army general who is in effect the army watchdog over Demirel's government. Thus fortified, Demirel pressed ahead with his development program.

Up to the Ears. For Turkey's 26 million peasants, who represent 80% of the country's population, Demirel is forming cooperatives, liberalizing agricultural credits, promoting the use of fertilizers and modern farm tools, setting up an agricultural college at Erzureem in eastern Anatolia, and building three dams for irrigation and rural power that will help double the country's electrical capacity by 1970.

To spur industry, the government is relaxing controls and offering investment incentives. Nearly all of Turkey's 100 biggest industrial enterprises filed expansion plans during 1966, and new industry is sprouting up. Last week the government unveiled Turkey's first homemade automobile, the Anadol, a sprightly little sedan that will go into production next month. "We are up to our ears in projects," Demirel says excitedly. "There is plenty of copper, lead and zinc in eastern Anatolia. There is some oil. There are magnificent stands of hardwood and softwood timber. Tobacco is already thriving around Izmir. There is great potential for livestock. Our Mediterranean coastal beaches could bring us $100 million a year from tourism."