July 9, 2002	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 27,1423

ANKARA, July 8: Turkey’s ailing Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit saw his party and government fall apart on Monday as his top deputy led a wave of resignations by ministers atop a move by his senior coalition partner to call early polls.

Ecevit’s closest aide and deputy prime minister Husamettin Ozkan was the first to resign both from his government post and Ecevit’s Democratic Left Party (DSP) amid a rift over the future of the embattled government.

Culture minister Istemihan Talay, state minister Recep Onal as well as deputy parliament speaker Ali Iliksoy followed suit.

The crisis has hit the Turkish stock market hard — it plunged nearly 4.7 percent on Monday — and fears over political paralysis have risen in the last two months, with the ailing Ecevit away from his office since then.

Further reports of resignations by DSP legislators followed in seconds, and Iliksoy said their number “must have reached 10 to 15.”—AFP