No need to ask the prime minister twice
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Hurriyet Daily News
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Aralık 13, 2008 00:00
ISTANBUL - When Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met a second time with foreign relations director of a U.S.-based drug company, Jeffrey Kemprecos, and his wife, Erdoğan suggested that all he had to do to become a citizen was apply, Hurriyet reported Monday.
The businessman met with Erdoğan last year at a dinner with a Turkish-American business association. Kemprecos said the prime minister took a liking to him and showed an interest in his ideas. Known for delivering speeches in Turkish, Kemprecos said he spoke for 20 minutes in Turkish to the prime minister about the medical industry. During the conversation, he also declared that he considered himself a representative of Turkey abroad.
PM: Speak Turkish, show interest and become a citizen
Kemprecos recalled the prime minister saying that he and his wife could become Turkish citizens as soon as they could speak Turkish fluently and showed an interest in Turkey. A resident of Istanbul for three years, Kemprecos said earlier this week, "We met with prime minister again a few months later. He said, 'You have not applied for citizenship'. Now, I will apply for citizenship so that I won't have him ask one more time."
Following the second encounter, Kemprecos said he asked the human resources department at Merck Sharp & Dohme to prepare his citizenship application.
"Now my documents are ready and I’m going to apply before the New Year," he said. Merck Co. Inc. is one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies.
In 1980, as an exchange student living with a Turkish family in Istanbul, he witnessed the coup that transformed the country. In the intervening years he said he stayed in touch with his Turkish friends from abroad and began learning the language.
Kemprecos told the daily Vatan last year that during the dinner the prime minister had joked, ’Now let's get you a condominium and make you a citizen.’ The father of three children, two of his daughters (12 and 10 years old) are in Turkish schools studying in Turkish. His other child is four and a half.
PM: Speak Turkish, show interest and become a citizen
Kemprecos recalled the prime minister saying that he and his wife could become Turkish citizens as soon as they could speak Turkish fluently and showed an interest in Turkey. A resident of Istanbul for three years, Kemprecos said earlier this week, "We met with prime minister again a few months later. He said, 'You have not applied for citizenship'. Now, I will apply for citizenship so that I won't have him ask one more time."
Following the second encounter, Kemprecos said he asked the human resources department at Merck Sharp & Dohme to prepare his citizenship application.
"Now my documents are ready and I’m going to apply before the New Year," he said. Merck Co. Inc. is one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies.
In 1980, as an exchange student living with a Turkish family in Istanbul, he witnessed the coup that transformed the country. In the intervening years he said he stayed in touch with his Turkish friends from abroad and began learning the language.
Kemprecos told the daily Vatan last year that during the dinner the prime minister had joked, ’Now let's get you a condominium and make you a citizen.’ The father of three children, two of his daughters (12 and 10 years old) are in Turkish schools studying in Turkish. His other child is four and a half.