Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

REVUE DE PRESSE, PRESS REVIEW,BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ,RwISTA STAMPA.DENTRO DE LA PRENSA.BASIN ÖZETÏ
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Thursday, July 14,1994
Çiller's fortune $60million
By Sirma Evcan
Turkish Daily News
ANKARA-As the Turkish Grand ~ational
Assembly prepares to debate today an investigation
motion concerning the total amount and the sou~ce of
Prime Minister Tansu Çiller's assets at home and m the
United States, Çiller's bio~raphy published in
Britannica Yearbook 1994 discloses that she had.
"amassed a fortune of some sixty million dollars
through real estate speculations." .
. The yearbook doesn't elaborate as to whether this is
the prime minister' s total wealth or only the part that
she accumulated in the United States. The author of the
biography, Jerold L. Kellman, mentions that Çiller's
success in real estate speculations was the result. of a
joint effort with her husband, "the owner of a cham of
convenience stores and a former banker."
Prime MiniSter Çiller's fortune as calculated by
. Turkish journalists who researched the subject amounts
to TL 615 billion, whereas the Britannica figures convert
to TL 1.8 trillion.
Journalists Nursun Erei and Ali Bilge, who worked as
consultants to Çiller while she.was economy minister, in
their book "Tansu Çiller'in Siyaset Romani" (novel on
Tansu Çiller's political career), give details of her assets
and how much they amounted to in February 1994,
before the April 5 austerity package and the rise of the
U.S. dollar.
What actually upsets Turkish society is that Çiller and
her husband added considerable sums to their fortune
during the last three years after.herentry to politics. In
that period she entered the Turkish Grand National
Assembly as a True Path Party (DYP) deputy, was immediately
appointed a state minister and within a year-and-a-half
became the country's prime minister. .. .
Erel and Bilge say Çiller's husband Ozer Çiller stopped
making speculations in Turkey and speculated in real estate
only in the United States after his wife became prime minister.
The main opposition Motherland Party (ANAP) dis~
closed on Wednesday thatthe prime minister and her husband
had also invested in finance companies in Europe and
Africa.
In a press conference on Tuesday, Çiller stated that she is
confident enough to give detailed account of her fortune.
Her party's deputies are, however, planning to resist the
motion for the investigation, accusIng the opposition of
mudslinging. It is reported that Republican People's Pall)
(CHP) Chalrman.Deniz B1!Y.kalmay refer to the Britannica
Yearbook information on