H.E. Abdullah Gül, deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs of Turkey, delivered a speech at the Brookings Institution on a full range of Turkish foreign policy issues including Turkish relations with the U.S.; its candidacy for the European Union; diplomacy with Iran; Cyprus; Iraq; and other regional issues.
Minister Gül began his career as an economics professor and worked as an economist at the Islamic Development Bank in Saudi Arabia. He was first elected as a member of the Turkish Parliament in 1991, and he has also served as minister of state, Turkish government spokesman, and member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. In 2001, he was awarded with the Pro-merito Medal of the Council of Europe and also founded the Justice and Development Party in Turkey. He was appointed as Turkish prime minister in 2002, and received his current appointment as deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs in March 2003.