Halil Menteşe

Halil Menteşe (1874–1948) was a Turkish government minister and politician, who was a well known official of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). He was the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the President of the Chamber of Deputies in the last years of the Ottoman Empire, and also served as an independent deputy from İzmir in the Republic of Turkey. He was one of the people most directly responsible for the Armenian genocide. With his brother Galip, he went to İzmir where he completed his education. Halid Ziya Uşaklıgil was his mentor in the İzmir Lycée, and from there he studied in Istanbul University's Faculty of Law. Fearing arrest by Hamidian authorities in 1894 he escaped to Paris. There he graduated from Faculty of Law of Paris and joined the Young Turks, establishing contact with important members of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) such as Ahmet Rıza, Mizancı Murat, and Dr. Nazım. With the death of his benefactor, he returned to Turkey in 1898, continuing an uneventful life in Milas until the 1908 revolution. Halil was elected a CUP MP from Menteşe in the general election for the parliament held after the revolution.

He was part of a commission to liquidate Abdul Hamid II's assets after his deposition. Halil took Talaat Bey's place when he stepped down from the interior ministry on 19 February 1911. He accompanied the Ottoman sultan Mehmed V on his visit to the Rumelian provinces. Halil stepped down from the interior ministry in December, and was elected President of the Chamber of Deputies on 15 May 1912. After the 1912 general election which the committee rigged in favor of itself, the opposition organized a group in the military known as the Savior Officers to shutter parliament. In a session of parliament on 25 July, Halil read to the Chamber of Deputies a death threat from the group, announcing that he was going to continue his position in government. The grand vizier Mehmed Said Pasha acquiesced to the Savior officers, resulting in parliament dissolving on 5 August. He retired to his estate in Milas in 1946, and died on 1 April 1948.

Legacy Academic Ismail Arar calls Halil a quadrimvir of the Three Pashas clique.