Turkey History

The Republic of Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye Cumhuriyeti)listen (help·info) or simply Turkey (Türkiye) is a Eurasian country located mainly in the Anatolian peninsula in Asia, with a small portion of its territory located in the Balkan region of Southeastern Europe. Turkey borders eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia, Armenia and the Nakhichevan exclave of Azerbaijan to the northeast; Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. The Republic of Turkey is a democratic, secular constitutional republic, whose political system was established in 1923. Turkey is a member state of the United Nations, NATO, OSCE, OECD, OIC and the Council of Europe. In October 2005, the European Union opened accession negotiations with Ankara. Due to its strategic location straddling Europe and Asia and between three seas, Turkey has been a historical crossroads and economic centre, the homeland of and battleground between several great civilizations.

The Turkish Republic was established on 29 October 1923 from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. The origins of modern Turkey can be traced back to the arrival of Turkish tribes in Anatolia in the 11th century, under the Seljuks with the Battle of Manzikert. In the 16th century, at the height of its power, the Ottoman Empire grew to cover Anatolia, North Africa, the Middle East, South-Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Following its defeat in World War I, Western powers sought to partition the empire through the Treaty of Sevres. With the support of the Allies, Greece had occupied Izmir as provided for in the Treaty. On 19 May 1919 this prompted the beginning of a nationalist movement under the command of Mustafa Kemal Pasha, a military commander who had distinguished himself in the Battle of Gallipoli. Kemal Pasha sought to revoke the terms of treaty which had been signed by the Sultan in Istanbul, this involved mobilizing every available part of Turkish society in what would become the Turkish War of Independence (Turkish: Kurtuluş Savaşı).

By 18 September 1922 the occupying Entente (Britain and France) armies were repelled and the country was liberated. This was followed by the abolition of the Sultan's office by the Turkish Grand National Assembly on 1 November 1922, thus ending 631 years of Ottoman rule. In 1923 the Treaty of Lausanne recognized the sovereignty of a new Turkish Republic, Kemal was granted the name Atatürk (meaning father of Turks) by the National Assembly and would become the Republic's first President. Atatürk instituted a wide-range of far reaching reforms with the aim of modernizing the new Republic from the remnants of its Ottoman past.

Turkey entered World War II on the Allied side in the latter stages of the war and became a charter member of the United Nations. Difficulties faced by Greece after World War II in quelling a communist rebellion and demands by the Soviet Union for military bases in the Turkish Straits prompted the United States to declare the Truman Doctrine in 1947. The doctrine enunciated American intentions to guarantee the security of Turkey and Greece and resulted in large scale U.S. military and economic support. After participating with United Nations forces in the Korean conflict, Turkey in 1952 joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Turkey intervened militarily in Cyprus in 1974 in response to a Greek coup by the militant nationalist group EOKA-B, backed by DISY. the Democratic Rally, which is the current opposition in the Greek Cypriot dominated Republic of Cyprus. The breakaway de-facto independent Northern Cyprus is not officially recognised by any country except Turkey itself.

Upon the retirement of President Kenan Evren, Turgut Özal was elected President, leaving parliament in the hands of the feckless Yildirim Akbulut, and then, in 1991, to Mesut Yilmaz. Yilmaz redoubled Turkey's economic profile and renewed its orientation toward Europe. But political instability followed as the host of banned politicians reentered politics, fracturing the vote, and the Motherland Party became increasingly corrupt. Ozal died of a heart attack in 1993 and Suleyman Demirel was elected president. The 1995 elections brought a short-lived coalition between Yilmaz's Motherland Party and The True Path Party, now with Tansu Ciller at the helm. Ciller then turned to the Welfare Party (RP), headed by Necmettin Erbakan, the former leader of the National Salvation Party, allowing Erbakan to enter the Prime Ministry. In 1998, the military, citing his government's support for a Turkish religious identity deemed dangerous to Turkey's secular nature, sent a memorandum to Erbakan requesting that he resign, which he did. Shortly thereafter, the RP was banned and re-born under the name Virtue Party (FP). A new government was formed by ANAP and Ecevit's Democratic Left Party (DSP) supported from the outside by the center-left Republican People's Party (CHP), led by Deniz Baykal.

A series of economic shocks led to new elections in 2002, bringing into power the conservative Justice and Development Party led by the former mayor of Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Turkey is currently in accession talks with the European Union.

There are many different ways of classifying the history of Turkey. The least disputed classification is based on three global periods: The war of independence, the single-party period and the multi-party period. Even if these periods have distinct characteristics, some issues do repeat in every period with subtle differences.