Chief Negotiator for Turkish Accession to the European Union 24 May 2016. With formal accession talks between Turkey and the European Union beginning in the years 2004 and 2005, the role of Chief Negotiator was established to represent the Turkish delegation during the membership negotiations. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appointed Ali Babacan as the first Chief Negotiator on 17 January 2005, while the then-Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül became the president of the Turkish delegation. When the Ministry of European Union Affairs was established on 29 June 2011 before Erdoğan formed his third and final government, the Minister responsible for the new department began serving concurrently as the Chief
Bülent Ecevit T. S. Eliot, and Bernard Lewis into Turkish. Ecevit, who also studied at the American Robert College, one of the most prestigious high schools in Istanbul, was successful in these literary endeavors despite never having graduated from a university, a fact that also prevented him from ever running for the Presidency of the Turkish Republic. Ecevit was hospitalized in Ankara and placed in a medically induced coma after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage on 18 May 2006, which struck him after he attended a friend's funeral. He died there from respiratory failure on 5 November 2006 at 20:40 (UTC), aged 81.