Former Turkish prime minister Mesut Yilmaz, who oversaw three governments in the 1990s as the country lurched between political crises, died Friday of cancer at the age of 73, his family said.
A conservative with a pugnacious style and trademark square glasses, Yilmaz also served as foreign minister in the 1980s.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s office called Yilmaz “one of the pre-eminent figures of Turkey’s political life”.
Yilmaz’s terms in office covered years of unstable coalitions, political scandals, and a growing conflict with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
His last premiership in 1997-99 was punctuated by a growing rift with neighboring Syria.
In 1998, Yilmaz sparked an outcry across the Arab world by threatening to “poke out the eyes” of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad for his support of the PKK.