Turkey’s former president and prime minister Suleyman Demirel, a giant figure in the country’s politics for over half a century, died Wednesday, the state Anatolia news agency said. He was 90.

Turkey's former president and prime minister Suleyman Demirel, a giant figure in the country's politics for over half a century, died Wednesday, the state Anatolia news agency said. He was 90.

In a remarkable career, Demirel survived dismissal in two military coups and a ban on holding office to become president and one of Turkey's most respected elder statesmen.

Demirel served as prime minister on repeated occasions in the 1960s and 1970s and then again one final time in the 1990s before serving as head of state from 1993 to 2000.

He died of heart failure resulting from a severe respiratory tract infection, Anatolia said, quoting the private Ankara hospital where he was treated.

His heyday was during one of the most chaotic periods of modern Turkish history when governments changed sometimes annually under the shadow of the powerful military, with the country was beset by daily street violence and an economic slump.