President Abdullah Gül is one of three nominees for the award. The other candidates are Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister, and Stjepan Mesic, the president of Croatia. Voting by Chatham House members will conclude on March 15 and the awards ceremony will take place in autumn.
Gül was nominated because he “has been a significant figure for reconciliation and moderation within Turkey and internationally, and a driving force behind many of the positive steps that Turkey has taken in recent years,” according to the Chatham House Web site. It said that throughout 2009, Gül worked to deepen Turkey’s ties with the Middle East, mediate between rival Iraqi groups and bring together Afghan and Pakistani leaders. It praised Gül’s efforts to reunite Cyprus and said he played a leading role, along with Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan, “in accelerating the unprecedented search for reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia.”
“President Gül is an unwavering proponent of anchoring Turkey in the European Union. Under his leadership, Turkey has consolidated civilian democratic rule and pursued extensive political and legal reforms to bring the country closer to European standards of democracy and human rights,” according to Chatham House.
Lagarde has been selected for adeptly steering the French economy through stormy economic times, and Mesic is praised for showing “consistently strong and effective leadership in Croatia at a time when the country has been transformed into a modern democratic European state following the regional wars of the 1990s.”
