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Turkish President Turgut Ozal died at age 66.

Earlier, Yilmaz served as foreign minister and culture minister in former premier Turgut Ozal’s government.

In 1988, meetings between prime ministers Turgut ������ of Turkey and Andreas Papandreou of Greece brought relations between the countries back from the brink of war.

Alliances are never perfect, of course, and there have been moments over the past seven decades that justify Turkey’s image as a close partner of the United States: President Turgut Ozal shut down pipelines carrying Iraqi oil through Turkey during the run-up to the Gulf War, at great cost to the Turkish economy, for instance.

Cengiz Candar, who served as an adviser to Turkish President Turgut Ozal in the early 1990s, predicts Mr. Erdogan’s ambitions go far beyond a lightning cross-border strike and that a permanent Turkish presence in northern Syria is on the table.