Keesing's World News Archives » Breaking History  »  Europe  »  Turkey: Suicide bombing in Ankara (pub. June 1, 2007)  »  Turkey: Suicide bombing in Ankara - timeline

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• March 2007.  It is reported that the USA will increase efforts to eliminate Iraq-based separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) guerrillas in order to avert military intervention by Turkey in Iraq; the police capture 12 suspected Kurdish rebels who are accused of planning to bomb industrial facilities around Istanbul.  
• February 2007.  The US government refuses to act against insurgents of the outlawed separatist PKK who are infiltrating south-eastern Turkey from bases in neighbouring northern Iraq; despite a PKK ceasefire, the Turkish army launch offensives against rebel Kurds in the south-eastern city of Tunceli and the province of Bingol; seven men, two of them al-Qaida members, are sentenced to life imprisonment for the suicide truck bombings in Istanbul in November 2003.   
• December 2006.  Three soldiers are killed and 14 injured in the south-eastern city of Sirnak when the PKK detonate a remote-controlled landmine as the military convoy passes by.   
• September 2006.  The right-wing Turkish Vengeance Brigade claims responsibility for a bomb at a bus stop in Diyarbakir; the PKK claims responsibility for a truck that explodes outside a police building in the eastern city of Igdir.   
• July 2006.  US President George W. Bush telephones Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to promise US support in combating outlawed separatist PKK, members of which are infiltrating south-eastern Turkey from neighbouring northern Iraq.   
• March 2006.  Amidst rising Kurdish unrest in the south-eastern city of Diyarbakir nine people die and 360 people are injured during demonstrations.   
• March 2006.  Three people are killed and 18 injured when a bomb explodes near a supermarket in Van; 50 suspected Islamist fundamentalists are remanded in custody following a security operation in Konya, central Turkey.   
• October 2005.  EU ministers launch historic membership talks with Turkey; 12 Kurdish protesters are arrested in the north-western town of Eskisehir after violence had erupted outside a court where four Turkish police officers were on trial for the murder of a 12-year-old Kurdish boy and his father.    
• July 2005.  At least five people are killed in the Aegean resort of Kusadasi when a parcel bomb explodes on a minibus; at least 55 soldiers and 36 rebels are killed during clashes between government troops and the PKK and the Kurdish People’s Defence Forces (HPG) in south-east Turkey.
• December 2004.  The EU approves the commencement of accession negotiations with Turkey.   
• May 2004.  It is reported that a five-year unilateral ceasefire by the outlawed separatist Kurdistan People's Congress ( Kongra-Gel), formerly known as the Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress (Kadek), or PKK, was ending on June 1, 2004; four small bombs explode at UK-owned HSBC banks in Istanbul and Ankara, two at each bank.   
• March 2004.  Two suicide bombers attack a restaurant in a Masonic lodge in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, opening fire on around 40 diners before setting off explosives attached to their bodies, killing a waiter and wounding five other people.   
• November 2003.  Four devastating suicide bomb attacks are launched in Istanbul.   
• June 2003.  The Grand National Assembly (GNA--the unicameral legislature) unanimously adopts a package of human rights reforms in order to comply with preconditions for negotiations over Turkey's accession to the EU.   
• March 2003.  The GNA narrowly rejects a government motion to permit the deployment of 62,000 US troops in Turkey ahead of a possible US-led war on Iraq; Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), is elected to the GNA, following constitutional amendments allowing him to stand, and assumes the post of prime minister.   
• November 2002.  In legislative elections the AKP secures an overall majority; the AKP and the Republican People's Party (CHP) are the only parties to pass the threshold of 10 per cent of the vote, thereby transforming the political landscape and giving Turkey its first two-party legislature since multiparty democracy was introduced in 1954.   
• July 2002.  Fresh elections are called after the poor health of Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit prompted mass defections of legislators from the ruling coalition and the resignations of key ministerial allies.   
• June 2001.  The constitutional court bans the main opposition Islamist Virtue Party (FP) for undermining Turkey’s secular order.   
• May 2000.  Ahmet Necdet Sezer, the former president of the constitutional court, is elected as Turkey’s 10th President by the GNA.   
• February 2000.  The PKK formally announces that it will back its leader Abdullah Öcalan's calls for peace, abandon the armed struggle in favour of a political approach and remove the word "Kurdistan" from its name.   
• January 2000.  The government agrees to respect an injunction from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) calling for the suspension of the execution of Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the outlawed PKK, pending his appeal to the court.   
• June 1999.  Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the PKK, is sentenced to death.   
• February 1999.  Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the PKK, is captured by the Turkish authorities in a secret operation in Kenya.   
• January 1998.  Turkey's Constitutional Court outlaws the opposition Islamist Welfare Party (RP), stating that it had conspired against the secularist order.   
• July 1997.  Greece and Turkey each agree to respect the other's sovereign rights and to renounce the use of force in dealing with each other.   
• June 1997.  The pro-Islamic government of Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan is replaced June by a new coalition headed by Mesut Yilmaz, leader of the secularist conservative Motherland Party (ANAP).   
• May 1997.  The military launches a massive offensive against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, deploying some 50,000 Turkish troops, backed by fighter aircraft, helicopters, and tanks.   
• March 1997.  Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan bows to pressure from the military-dominated National Security Council (NSC) and agrees to sign a list of its "recommendations" designed to halt the country's drift towards radical Islam.   
• June 1996.  The pro-Islamic Welfare Party (RP) forms a coalition government with the True Path Party (DYP), marking the formation of the first government headed by an Islamist party since the creation of a secular Turkish republic in 1923.   
• February 1996.  The DYP of caretaker Prime Minister Tansu Ciller and ANAP, led by Mesut Yilmaz, agree to form a centre-right coalition government, thereby sidelining the pro-Islamic RP.   
• December 1995.  The pro-Islamic opposition RP headed by Necmettin Erbakan emerges as the winner of the largest number of seats in legislative elections.   
• September 1995.  The coalition government led by the centre-right DYP under Prime Minister Tansu Ciller collapses.   
• July 1995.  The GNA approves sweeping constitutional reforms, widely expected to pave the way for Turkey's entry into a customs union with the EU in 1996.   
• May 1995.  Turkish military forces withdraw from northern Iraq.   
• March 1995.  The military launches a major offensive against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, deploying some 35,000 Turkish troops, backed by tanks, helicopters and F-16 fighter aircraft.   
• May 1993.  Süleyman Demirel, Turkey's Prime Minister since November 1991 and leader of the right-wing DYP, is May 16 elected by the GNA as the country's president for a seven-year term; guerrillas from the PKK kill 33 unarmed soldiers and five civilians in an ambush in Bingol province, thereby ending a unilateral ceasefire announced by the PKK in March.   
• March 1993.  The leader of the PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, announces a unilateral ceasefire and offers negotiations for a political solution to the Kurdish conflict.   
• October 1992.  Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters, and guerrillas of the (Turkish) PKK engage in fighting in northern Iraq as the peshmerga attempt to force the PKK out of Iraq; Turkish troops enter Iraq in a large-scale air and ground operation with the objective of trapping the PKK in a pincer between hostile Iraqi and Turkish forces.   
• August 1992.  Some 150,000 Turkish troops are deployed to the country’s south-east after a series of violent clashes and scores of casualties.   
• March 1992.  The Turkish airforce launches bombing raids over the border with Iraq against guerrilla bases of the PKK.     
• January 1991.  Turkey allows the US airforce to station 96 warplanes at Incirlik, near the southern city of Adana, as part of the US-led coalition mobilised to repel Iraq from Kuwait.   
• June 1990.  There is an upsurge in violent clashes between government troops and Kurdish guerrillas in the south-eastern provinces.  
• March 1990.  Faced with escalating Kurdish unrest in Turkey’s south-eastern provinces, the military-dominated National Security Council outlines a package of measures designed to curb the insurgency.   
• July 1989.  395 members of the outlawed left-wing group Dev Yol ("Revolutionary Way") are convicted of "terrorist crimes" committed prior to the military coup of September 1980.   
• January 1987.  In his 1987 New Year address President Kena Evren warns against an increase in anti-secular activities and states that secularism was a foundation stone of modern Turkey.   
• August 1986.  25 members of the separatist PKK are sentenced to death after being convicted of a series of murders and other crimes, including attempts to establish a separate Kurdish state.   
• August 1986.  The Turkish airforce launch attacks against three alleged Kurdish guerrilla bases across the border in northern Iraq in retaliation for the earlier killing of 12 government troops in an ambush by members of the separatist PKK.   
• August 1986.  Celal Bayar, Turkey’s president in 1950-60, dies, aged 104.   
• October 1985.  Turkey agrees to act as a mediator in the Iran-Iraq conflict.   
• January 1984.  14 Leaders of the banned PKK are sentenced to between eight and 12 years in prison for attempting to form an organisation designed to create a Marxist-Leninist state.   
• December 1983.  Three Kurds are sentenced to death for high treason and 10 others are sentenced to life imprisonment for attempting to establish an independent Kurdish state in Turkey.   
• December 1983.  Turgut Özal becomes prime minister.  
• November 1983.  Turkey formally recognises the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus as an independent entity.   
• November 1983.  The Motherland Party, led by Turgut Ozal, wins an absolute majority in legislative elections to the 400-member GNA (the unicameral legislature established under the 1982 constitution).   
• May 1983.  It is reported that three separatist Kurdish organisations are operating in Turkey.   
• November 1982.  In a national referendum, voters approve a new constitution, including provisions for a seven-year presidency and a unicameral legislature.   
• September 1980.  A military coup leads to the formation of a five-member National Security Council, led by Gen. Kenan Evren, the imposition of martial law, the detention of senior political leaders and suspected left-wing and right-wing militants; a new cabinet and a constituent assembly are formed.   
• July 1980.  The reopening of the Aegean air corridors is widely regarded as a breakthrough in relations between Greece and Turkey.   
• March 1980.  Turkey and the USA sign an agreement, under which the latter is permitted to use 12 military bases in Turkey in exchange for a package of military and economic aid.   
• August 1979.  Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel claims that Kurdish organisations in Turkey aim to "break up" the country.   
• December 1978.  A period of political violence, including rioting and indiscriminate killing, in the eastern town of Kahramanmaras leads to the imposition of martial law in 13 of Turkey's 67 provinces.   
• September 1978.  The US arms embargo, imposed in 1975, is lifted.   
• July 1976.  A military confrontation erupts between Greece and Turkey after conflicting claims to sovereignty over the continental shelf in the Aegean Sea and on the use of the airspace over the Aegean.   
• February 1975.  The USA suspends foreign aid to Turkey following the latter’s invasion of Cyprus.   
• July 1974.  Turkish military forces invade Cyprus.   
• March 1971.  Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel resigns in face of growing pressure from military commanders; Nihat Erim becomes the prime minister and forms a new coalition government.  
• October 1965.  The Justice Party, led by Suleyman Demirel, wins a clear majority in legislative elections; Demirel is sworn in as the new prime minister.   
• February 1965.  Ismet Inonu resigns as prime minister and is replaced by Suat Hayri Urguplu, who forms a new coalition government.   
• July 1962.  A new constitution is introduced, including the establishment of a bicameral legislature; Former President Ismet Inonu becomes prime minister and forms a coalition government.    
• October 1960.  Former President Celal Bayer is sentenced to death (later commuted to life in prison).   
• May 1960.  President Bayar is removed from power in a military coup and replaced by former military commander Gen. Cemal Gursel.   
• May 1950.  The Democratic Party, led by Bayar, win Turkey’s first general elections, defeating the ruling People's Party, which had governed the country uninterrupted since its foundation in 1923; Bayar is sworn in as Turkey’s third president.   
• February 1950.  The Turkish Grand National Assembly introduces electoral reforms.