April 1993 — President Turgut Ozal, founder of the Motherland Party (ANAP — Anavatan Partisi) and former prime minister, dies. Speculation that he was poisoned spreads throughout the country, although prosecutors ultimately decide that the cause of death was heart failure.
May 1993 — Parliament elects Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel as the ninth president of Turkey after the death of Turgut Ozal.
July 1993 — Tansu Ciller, who is elected as the leader of the True Path Party (DYP — Dogru Yol Partisi) after Suleyman Demirel, is appointed as Turkey's first female prime minister and leads the coalition government with Social Democratic Populist Party (SHP — Sosyal Demokrat Halkçi Parti).
February 1995 — The SHP, partner of the coalition government, decides to join the Republican Public Party (CHP — Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi) in its general congress. Coalition government lead by Ciller continues with CHP.
September 1995 — Ciller declares the resignation of the government because of disagreements between her and Deniz Baykal, who is elected as the new leader of the the CHP, a partner of the coalition government. Ciller establishes a minority government, which cannot secure a vote of confidence from the Parliament. Ciller and Baykal agree on reestablishing the coalition government in early October — this lasts until the general elections.
December 1995 — General elections are held. The Welfare Party (RP-Refah Partisi) wins the majority of the votes but cannot secure a sufficient number of congressmen to form the government.
January 1996 — The Customs Union, which aims for the elimination of all customs duties and restrictions among European Union (EU) member states and the introduction of a common customs tariff (CCT), applicable throughout the European Union to third countries, takes effect between Turkey and the EU. Turkey is the first and only country that enters into such integration without being a member of the EU.
March 1996 — Two center-right parties form a minority coalition government lead by Mesut Yilmaz with the outside support of Democratic Left Party (DSP-Demokratik Sol Parti).
June 1996 — Prime Minister Yilmaz resigns due to the disagreement with the leader of the coalition partner, Ciller.
July 1996 — Necmettin Erbakan, leader of the Welfare Party, becomes the prime minister after forming a coalition government with True Path Party.
July 1997 — Prime Minister Erbakan resigns and Yilmaz becomes Prime Minister again.
November 1998 — After the passage of a no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz, the government resigns before the elections.
February 1999 — Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK-Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan), is captured in Kenya and brought back to Turkey. In June 1999, he is convicted of treason and sentenced to death. The death sentence is commuted to life without parole in October 2002 after Parliament abolishes the death penalty. More than 30,000 people have died in the course of terrorist attacks by the PKK. Since 1999, Ocalan has made statements supporting "political dialogue and peaceful struggle."
December 1999 — In Helsinki, members of the European Union decide that Turkey is a candidate state to join the Union on the basis of the same criteria as applied to the other candidate states.
April 1999 — DSP wins the majority of the seats in the elections. Bulent Ecevit, the leader of the DSP, leads the three-party coalition government.
May 2000 — Ahmet Necdet Sezer, formerly the chief justice of the Constitutional Court, becomes president.
November 2000 — A criminal corruption probe into banks placed in state receivership triggers a financial crisis. Investigations reveal that the assets of several banks had been siphoned by the owners and deposited into offshore accounts. The Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BRSA) states that crises cost Turkey US$47.2 billion.
April 2001 — Energy Minister Cumhur Ersumer resigns amid allegations of corruption in the awarding of state energy contracts. A prosecutor files corruption charges against top energy officials and businessmen in the energy industry. In July 2002, three former officials are convicted and given 10-year sentences.
January 2002 — The action plan "Enhancing Transparency and Strengthening Good Governance in Turkey" is adopted by the cabinet of ministers. The plan describes concrete measures to be taken to increase good governance in Turkey with deadlines and responsible agencies. The plan calls for the establishment of a ministerial committee and a technical committee to monitor the implementation of the plan. The State Minister Besir Atalay currently heads the ministerial committee, while the head of the technical committee is Mutalip Unal, the chairman of the Prime Ministry Inspection Board.
August 2002 — Parliament abolishes the death penalty.
November 2002 — Justice and Development Party (AKP-Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi) wins the general elections by getting 34 percent of the votes. The newly established AKP based its political campaign on fighting against poverty and corruption. Abdullah Gul leads the new government. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the AKP, reveals the "Urgent Action Plan" of their party, which includes the steps that will be taken to fight corruption. Some of these are increasing the sanctions for corruption crimes, enacting a public information act and reforming the public procurement regulations in accordance with EU standards.
March 2003 —Erdogan, leader of the AKP and mayor of Istanbul in the 1990s, becomes prime minister after changes to the Constitution in December 2002 allow him to run in elections for the city of Siirt. He had been barred from the Parliament because of a criminal conviction for reading a poem at a political demonstration.
JULY 2003 — Due to liquidity problems, the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) decide to seize control of Turkish bank Imar Bankasi on grounds that Imar was endangering depositors. Imar Bankasi is owned by Uzan family, well-known outside Turkey with their dispute with Motorola and Nokia, in which a U.S. court decides that the family committed fraud and should pay US$4.3 billion to the two firms.
Officials working on reconciliation of the deposits of Imar realize a massive corruption had been committed for a decade at the bank. The bank had maintained a double accounting system, in which the total deposit amount reported to BRSA was around US$0.5 billion while the real amount was more than US$5 billion. Officials also find out that the bank had sold fake treasury bills by offering higher interest rates to its customers, although it did not have a license to do so. Owners of the bank, Kemal Uzan and Hakan Uzan, flee the country. The two are still out of country and their cases continue in their absence. Uzan family members are accused of siphoning US$6 billion from the bank.
November 2003 — Terrorist attacks at the HSBC Bank Headquarters and the British Consulate General in Istanbul cause the death of 33 people.
December 2003 — Parliament votes overwhelmingly to launch investigations into alleged wrongdoing by former Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz and five other former ministers. Both Yilmaz and his top aide, Gunes Taner, stand accused of rigging the sale of a state-owned bank. Former Deputy Premier Husamettin Ozkan and former Economy Minister Recep Onal face investigation for their roles in the financial troubles of the state bank Halk Bankasi, while former Energy Ministers Zeki Cakan and Cumhur Ersumer will be the focus of a probe into alleged misbehavior surrounding the awarding of state energy contracts.
Parliamentary investigations are completed, and the Parliament decides to send all of the defendants to court. The trials are completed between 2005 and 2006. The court sentences the former Energy Minister Cumhur Ersumer to 20 months in prison but defers the punishment. The court finds the other former Energy Minister Zeki Cakan not guilty. The court finds former Deputy Prime Minister Husamettin Ozkan and former Economy Minister Recep Onal not guilty. The court decides that the offence committed by the former Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz and his aide Gunes Taner is an abuse of duty defined in the criminal code, but does not mandate any punishment due to the fact that the crime falls under the conditional release law adopted in 1999.
December 2003 — Turkey signs the U.N. Convention against Corruption and ratifies it in November 2006.
May 2004 — Parliament adopts a law on the establishment of Public Officials Ethics Council. The goals of the Ethics Council are to define the moral standards that should be followed by the public officials to carry out their responsibilities in a transparent, objective, honest and accountable manner, and to monitor the implementation of these standards. The decree prepared by this council on the moral standards of public officials came into force in May 2005.
April 2004 — The Right of People to Access Information Act comes into force. The law clearly defines that everyone, including foreigners living in the country, has the right to access to government information.
April 2005 — The new Criminal Code adopted by the Parliament a year before comes into force. The new code increases the penalties for corruption crimes such as embezzlement, extortion and bribery.
October 2005 — EU accession talks are opened with Turkey. Concrete accession negotiations are started in June 2006.
April 2007 — Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declares Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as his candidate for the presidential elections. Three days later, the military publishes a broadcast on their Web site, which stresses the importance of protecting the secular regime of Turkey and implies that they will not allow anybody to attempt to bring Islamic rule to the country. The declaration also hints that they will interfere with the government actions if they see it necessary. This declaration is named as an e-coup by media groups and as a sign of the military's opposition to the presidency of Abdullah Gul.
July 2007 — The Justice and Development Party (AKP - Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi) gets 46 percent of the vote in the early general elections and now controls 341 of 550 seats, a landslide victory. Twenty eight "independent" candidates also win seats, most affiliated with the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP - Demokratik Toplum Partisi).
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