Hikmet Çetin

Hikmet Çetin ( born 1937 in Lice, Diyarbakır ) is a Turkish politician and former chairman of the Republican People's Party. From 1991 to 1994 he was Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey.

Youth

Hikmet was in Lice, a district of Diyarbakır, born to Kurdish parents. After he finished the elementary school in his hometown and secondary school in Ankara, he studied in 1960 at Ankara University Political Science, where he also received his bachelor's degree in economics.

After his training Hikmet Çetin worked for the State Planning Organisation ( Devlet plan Lama Teşkilatı ). Then he went to the United States, where he received his master's degree in "Economics of development" at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. In 1968 he was for research purposes at Stanford University in California. In 1970 he did his military service in Turkey. During this time he was part-time lecturer at the Technical University of the Middle East in Ankara.

Political career

Hikmet Çetin won in 1977 a parliamentary seat for the Republican People's Party in the electoral district of Istanbul. Between 1978 and 1979 he served as Minister of State and later as deputy prime minister under Bülent Ecevit. After the military coup of 1980 Çetin traveled around there to help the government build to Yemen.

In 1987 he became a deputy of the constituency Diyarbakır for Sosyaldemokrat Halkçı Parti. Hikmet Çetin received in 1990 for the electoral district of Gaziantep his third parliamentary seat, again for the Sosyaldemokrat Halkçı Parti. He was appointed Foreign Minister of Turkey Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel 1991. Hikmet Çetin resigned from his post as foreign minister on 27 July 1994 back.

Hikmet Çetin took his seat in Parliament in 1995 come true again and was elected on 16 October 1997 President of the Parliament, a position he held until April 18, 1999. Çetin and other Turkish politicians and the district mayor of Şişli, Mustafa Sarıgül, working on the establishment of a social democratic party in Turkey.

Other activities

Çetin is Commissioner of the Euro - Atlantic security community, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Awards

• 2006: Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana ( Grand Officer )
• 2001: Honorary doctorate from the Florida Atlantic University
• 1994: Honorary doctorate from the State University of Baku