ISTANBUL: Turkey’s fragile coalition government teetered on the brink of collapse on Monday after three cabinet ministers and 20 lawmakers bolted from the party led by ailing Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit.

The defections likely will undermine Turkey’s efforts to carry out wide-ranging reforms that the European Union has demanded as a precondition for launching membership talks and to stall efforts to end a crippling recession.

The wave of resignations from Ecevit’s Democratic Left Party began when Deputy Prime Minister Husamettin Ozkan, until recently the prime minister’s closest aide, said he was leaving the government and his party.

If more than 59 legislators leave Ecevit’s party, the three- way coalition would lose its parliamentary majority and the government would collapse.

Ozkan, who is credited with bridging differences within the fractious government, quit over growing differences with Ecevit and the prime minister’s highly influential wife, Rahsan. Ecevit reportedly was angered that Ozkan had given his tacit backing to a growing number of politicians, business leaders and commentators who have urged Ecevit to step down.

Ecevit’s illnesses, which include an intestinal problem, blood clots in his legs and a neurological disorder, have weakened his grip on the government and his party. Ecevit is blamed for the current political crisis because he has ignored calls to name a successor as party leader.

Economy Minister Kemal Dervis is seen by many as the best person for the job. The snag is that he isn’t a member of parliament, which rules him out as prime minister under the Turkish constitution. Another contender is Ismail Cem, Turkey’s popular foreign minister.

Both men are seen as well positioned to steer the country out of its worst recession since 1945 and to help push through a deal on the divided island of Cyprus that would ease Turkey’s entry into the European Union.

But Ecevit insists that he must lead the country until April 2004, when general elections are next scheduled. “The love of power overtook (his) love for Turkey,” said Hakan Tartan, one of the defecting lawmakers.

The Bush administration is watching the crisis in Turkey with mounting concern. The country is NATO’s sole Muslim-majority member and Israel’s closest regional ally. With its embrace of secularism, Turkey’s strategic value has increased in the wake of the Sept 11 attacks.

In June, Turkey assumed command of the international peacekeeping force in Kabul, clinching its role as a committed US ally.

The government, an awkward coalition of left and right wing parties, until recently had been praised by the International Monetary Fund and Western governments for enacting sweeping economic reforms.

But cracks began to emerge in recent months as the ultranationalist wing of the government opposed moves to lift existing bans on broadcasting and education in the Kurdish language and to abolish the death penalty in line with European Union demands.—Dawn/LAT-WP Guardian News Service (c) Los Angeles Times