FILE - In this Oct. 21, 2007 file photo, former Turkish President Suleyman Demirel speaks to the media at a polling station in Ankara. Doctors at Guven Hospital said Demirel died Wednesday, June 17, 2015 of heart failure and a respiratory tract infection. He was 90. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici, File) (The Associated Press)
ANKARA, Turkey – Long-serving Turkish politician Suleyman Demirel is being laid to rest in a rose-scented ceremony in Ankara.
The 90-year-old Demirel died early Wednesday morning following a decades-long career at the top of Turkish politics.
He was a consummate politician, surviving two coups, slogging through years of political instability and serving a total of seven terms as prime minister before rising to the presidency.
Demirel's coffin was towed through the street escorted by columns of blue-uniformed soldiers who swayed as they marched.
The rose petals laid on his flag-draped coffin and the rosewater sprayed onto the street in front of his cortege were reminders of his home province of Isparta, famous for its roses.
A ceremony at Ankara's Kocatepe Mosque is due later Friday.
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