ANKARA, Jan 19 (AFP) - Turkish President Suleyman Demirel asked caretaker Prime Minister Tansu Ciller to form a government Friday, after pro-Islamic leader Necmettin Erbakan failed to find a coalition partner and gave up, the presidential palace announced. Erbakan whose Islamist bloc narrowly won last month's general election had given himself a week to form a coalition after Demirel asked him on January 9 to head Turkey's next government. His party holds 158 seats in the 550-seat national assembly. But after failing to persuade leaders of Turkey's four other parliamentary parties to join him in a coalition, Erbakan finally conceded defeat. Ciller's center-right True Path Party came in second in the December 24 elections, garnering 135 seats. Ciller and her rival Mesut Yilmaz, leader of the center-right Motherland Party, were expected to come under heavy pressure by the secular-oriented political establishment, as well as from business circles and the military, to form a coalition to shut out the Islamists. AFP /AA1234/191801 GMT JAN 96

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