WORLD : Turkish Foreign Minister Quits

ANKARA, Turkey — Foreign Minister Ali Bozer resigned today in an apparent rift over his virtual exclusion by President Turgut Ozal from Turkey’s policy over the Persian Gulf crisis.

“I have resigned because I could not have continued my job with speculation about myself,” Bozer told a news conference.

He said he handed in his resignation two weeks ago after returning from a visit to Washington and New York with Ozal.

Bozer was known to have been dismayed when he was excluded from Ozal’s White House meeting with President Bush last month. Foreign Ministry officials noted that Secretary of State James A. Baker III attended the talks, during which Ozal vowed to honor the U.N. economic embargo against Iraq.