turmoil, wrote extensive accounts of the economic and social factors lying beneath Turkey's underdevelopment and theoretized methods for the revitalization of Turkish left. Among his books are Turkiye'de Geri Kalmışlığın Tarihi (A History of Underdevelopment in Turkey), one of the most acclaimed books in the field of social sciences in Turkey and Sosyal Demokrasi Nedir?, Ne Değildir? (What is and What is not Social Democracy?), one of the first books to introduce social democracy to Turkish politics. İpekçi's books, characterized by their plain but informative nature, are still popular and are growing even more popular, especially in light of the current dissent against AKP's Islamism and the debate of reformation in Turkish left. He is also labeled as the visionary of the "Anatolian Left (Anadolu Solu)" . A more detailed bibliography of his works can be found below. Political career He entered politics after being elected deputy of Istanbul from the Kadıköy district in the general elections held in 1987. He was re-elected in 1991 again from Istanbul and in 1995 from Kayseri. After the death of President Turgut Özal in 1993, he ran for president without success. In 1995, Cem left the Republican People's Party (CHP) and joined the Democratic Left Party (DSP). He was then appointed Minister of Culture. He served as minister of foreign affairs from 30 June 1997 until 11 July 2002. He was the fourth longest-serving minister of this position in Turkey. Relations with the European Union He negotiated candidate status for Turkey's bid to join the European Union as foreign minister. He was largely credited with Turkey's declaration as a full member candidate during the Helsinki Summit Meeting in 1999, after much negotiation with the EU and a night trip by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and the then European Commissioner Günter Verheugen to Ankara to iron out the last details. Relations with Greece Cem and his Greek counterpart George Papandreou worked to improve Turkish-Greek relations. It is during his tenure as foreign minister that a confident, albeit a step-by-step approach was taken towards a rapprochement between Turkey and Greece. The relations were actually at an all-time low after the Abdullah Öcalan affair, whereby Greek Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos and some officials of the Greek Foreign Ministry were involved in hiding organization PKK leader prior to his arrest by the Turkish police. İpekçi and Papandreou picked up the historically hostile relationships initially starting