NYT: Bulent Ecevit, a Political Survivor Who Turned Turkey Toward the West, Is Dead at 81 - by STEPHEN KINZER

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Bulent Ecevit, a Political Survivor Who Turned Turkey Toward the West, Is Dead at 81 - by STEPHEN KINZER

Bulent Ecevit, a resilient leader who served four terms as Turkey’s prime minister in a turbulent era, died yesterday in a hospital in Ankara, the Turkish capital. He was 81. Mr. Ecevit, who suffered a stroke in May from which he never completely recovered, died of circulatory and respiratory failure, the Gulhane military hospital said. For much of his political career — almost half a century — Mr. Ecevit was a leftist and a nationalist. An opponent of religious fundamentalism, he helped maintain Turkey’s position as the world’s most secular Muslim country.

During his final years in power, Mr. Ecevit turned away from the leftism that had shaped his career. He abandoned much of his hostility to private enterprise, and, after helping to keep Turkey out of the European Union in the 1970s, he came to believe that integration with the West was a good idea.