Ecevit Gets a Reprieve

But his government faces a troubled summer

Amid fistfights and catcalls at a tumultuous joint session, the Turkish Parliament last week voted 319 to 252 to extend martial law for two months in 19 provinces. Under the circumstances, the margin of victory was surprisingly high: only two days earlier, the government of Premier Buelent Ecevit narrowly survived a censure vote by boycotting a session of the lower house, thereby preventing a quorum. With just 209 seats in the 450-member lower house, Ecevit's Republican People's Party depends on the uncertain support of independents to maintain a slim majority. Meanwhile, Ecevit is under constant attack by burly, gladhanding former Premier Sueleyman Demirel, whose Justice Party has 177 parliamentary seats but can muster enough support from independents to threaten the government on any important vote.

Eager to return to power, Demirel blames Ecevit for the fact that Turkey is threatened by bankruptcy. The country has exhausted its foreign exchange reserves, faces $13 billion in foreign debts, and total exports earnings ($2.3 billion last year) barely cover the cost of imported oil. A group of 24 nations, led by the U.S., West Germany, Britain and France, agreed last month to provide $1.5 billion in emergency assistance. That aid was contingent on Turkish acceptance of an austerity program proposed by the International Monetary Fund.

Ecevit, who only a few months ago was boasting that "Turkey will depend solely on her own resources," last week bowed to fiscal realism. He agreed to a demand by the IMF that the lira be devalued by a whopping 70%. Devaluation should restore Turkey's credit with the international banking community, clear the way for billions more in aid, and improve the country's balance of payments by making its exports more competitive. But the move will make life even more miserable than ever for the average Turk, who must cope with an annual inflation rate of anywhere from 60% to 80%, and chronic shortages of everything from bread and coffee to fertilizer.

Meanwhile, Ecevit's government is still grappling with an outbreak of violence that has claimed more than 1,500 lives in the past 18 months. The worst incident occurred in December, when 111 people were killed in a sectarian clash between the generally right-wing Sunni Muslims and the often left-leaning Shi'ite Muslims. An ardent civil libertarian, Ecevit reluctantly imposed martial law in 13 of Turkey's 67 provinces. Martial law was later extended to six eastern provinces to head off potential Kurdish unrest stimulated by the revolution in Iran.

Turkish terrorism comes in two varieties. By far the greatest number of victims have died in an ongoing war between extremists of the far left and the far right. Last week in downtown Istanbul, a student was killed and hundreds arrested following a Shootout between government security agents and right-wing gunmen. Potentially more dangerous, however, is political terrorism carried out by the Turkish equivalent of the Italian Red Brigades or West Germany's Red Army Faction. This year they have killed two American servicemen as well as several prominent Turks. The groups consist of small, tightly knit units operating on a hit-and-run basis. Their members come mainly from the upper middle class --youths who have gone beyond an infatuation with Marxism to revolutionary violence. Turkish police have had some success in cracking down on the terrorists. In Izmir, they arrested seven members of a "Marxist-Leninist Turkish Liberation Army Front," an underground organization that may have been responsible for killing the two Americans.

For all their parliamentary squabbling, Ecevit and Demirel are divided more by personal animosity than by ideology. Demirel, by profession an engineer, generally favors free-enterprise solutions. Ecevit, a poet and the son of a university professor, leans toward mildly socialist ones. Turkey's real problem, though, is that neither party is strong enough to govern effectively. Still, Ecevit sounded optimistic about his own political future and that of his strategically important country in an interview with TIME Rome Bureau Chief Wilton Wynn.

Said Ecevit: "There has been ample freedom in Turkey for 50 years. Those who oppose the regime here hanker for an authoritarian regime, whether of the right or the left. Because our people are attached to democracy [the extremists] cannot get support.

"Under certain conditions we can solve our problems. These include a reasonable degree of political stability and international financial aid for the next two years, beginning without delay. The reason I am optimistic is that Turkey has a vast number of well-trained and well-educated people. We have unexploited mineral resources. We can earn more from tourism than from exports. And we can export construction and engineering services to regional countries. But we are in a very volatile situation. The opposition has chosen this particular period to stir up a government crisis, which will hamper our opportunity to restore our economy with foreign aid. We risk seeing this year wasted in the economic and social sense. We must live with instability for some time, but instability may be the price we have to pay for democracy."

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