Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Secularism in Turkey

Secularism in Turkey was introduced with the Turkish Constitution of 1924 and later the Atatürk's Reforms set the administrative and political requirements to create a modern, democratic, secular state aligned with the Kemalist ideology. After thirteen years of its introduction, laïcité was explicitly stated in the second article of the Turkish constitution on February 5, 1937. The current Turkish constitution neither recognizes an official religion nor promotes any. This includes Islam, which at least nominally more than 99% of its citizens subscribe to. Turkey's "laïcité" does not call for a strict separation of religion and the state, but describes the state's stance as one of "active neutrality." Turkey's actions related with religion are carefully analyzed and evaluated through the Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı (English: Presidency of Religious Affairs). The duties of the Presidency of Religious Affairs are "to execute the works concerning the beliefs, worship, and ethics of Islam, enlighten the public about their religion, and administer the sacred worshipping places".

The history of secularism in Turkey extends to Tanzimat reforms of Ottoman Empire. The second peak in secularism occurred during the Second constitutional era. The current from is achieved by Atatürk's Reforms.

The establishing structure (Ruling institution of the Ottoman Empire) of the Ottoman empire (13th century) was an Islamic State in which the head of the Ottoman state was the Sultan. The social system was organized around millet. Millet structure allowed a great degree of religious, cultural and ethnic continuity to non-Muslim populations across the subdivisions of the Ottoman Empire and at the same time it permitted their incorporation into the Ottoman administrative, economic and political system. The Ottoman-appointed governor collected taxes and provided security, while the local religious or cultural matters were left to the regional communities to decide. On the other hand, the sultans were Muslims and the laws that bound them were based on the Sharia, the body of Islamic law, as well as various cultural customs. The Sultan, beginning in 1516, was also a Caliph, the leader of all the Sunni Muslims in the world. By the turn of the 19th century the Ottoman ruling elite recognized the need to restructure the legislative, military and judiciary systems to cope with their new political rivals in Europe. When the millet system started to lose its efficiency due to the rise of nationalism within its borders, the Ottoman Empire explored new ways of governing its territory composed of diverse populations.

Sultan Selim III founded the first secular military schools by establishing the new military unit, Nizam-ı Cedid, as early as 1792. However the last century (19th century) of the Ottoman Empire had many far reaching reforms. These reforms peaked with the tanzimat which was the initial reform era of the Ottoman empire. After the tanzimat, rules, such as those relating to the equalized status of non-Muslim citizens, the establishment of a parliament, as well as the codification of the constitution of the empire and the rights of ottoman subjects were established. The First World War brought about the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent partitioning of the Ottoman Empire by the victorious Allies. Therefore, the Republic of Turkey was actually a nation-state built as a result of an empire lost.

During the establishment of Republic, there were two sections of the elite group at the helm of the discussions for the future; which they had the firsthand experience of Ottoman Reforms which were implemented beginning from the last quarter of the 19th century. These were the Islamist reformists and Westerners. They shared a similar goal, the modernization of the new state. There were many basic goals which were common to both the groups. The founder of the modern Turkish Republic Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's achievement was to amplify this common ground and put the country on a fast track of reforms which is now known as Atatürk's Reforms.

The first act was to give by will to the Turkish nation the right to exercise popular sovereignty via representative democracy. Prior to declaring the new Republic, the Turkish Grand National Assembly abolished the constitutional monarchy on November 1, 1922. The Turkish Grand National Assembly then moved to replace the extant Islamic law structure with the laws it had passed during the Turkish War of Independence, beginning in 1919. The modernization of the Law had already begun at the point that the project was undertaken in earnest. A milestone in this process was the passage of the Turkish Constitution of 1921. Upon the establishment of the Republic on October 29, 1923, the institution of the Caliphate remained, but the passage of a new constitution in 1924 effectively abolished this title held by the Ottoman Sultanate since 1517. With the negation of the Caliphate the final vestiges of Islamic Law are regarded as having disappeared from the Turkish landscape. The Caliphate's powers within Turkey were transferred to the National Assembly and the title has since been inactive. While very unlikely, the Turkish Republic does in theory still retain the right to reinstate the Caliphate, should it ever elect to do so .

Following quickly upon these developments, many social reforms were undertaken. Many of these reforms affected every aspect of Turkish life, moving to erase the legacy of dominance long held by religion and tradition. The Unification of education, installation of a secular education system, and the closure of many religious orders was happened on March 3, 1924. this extended to closure of religious convents and dervish lodges on November 30, 1925. These reforms included the extension to women of voting rights in 1931 and the right to elected office in December 5, 1934. The inclusion of reference to laïcité into the constitution was achieved by an amendment on February 5, 1937, is seen as the final act in the project of instituting complete separation between governmental and religious affairs in Turkey.

Constitution bans any proposals for the modification of these articles. Each of these concepts which were distributed in the three articles of the constitution can not be achieved without the other two concepts . The constitution requires a central administration which would lose its meaning (effectiveness, coverage, etc) if the system is not based on laïcité, social equality, and equality before law. Vice versa, if the Republic differentiate itself based on social, religious differences, administration can not be equal to the population when the administration is central. The system which tried to be established in the constitution sets out to found a unitary nation-state based on the principles of secular democracy.

The Turkish Constitution recognizes freedom of religion for individuals whereas the religious communities are placed under the protection of state, but the constitution explicitly states that they cannot become involved in the political process (by forming a religious party for instance) and no party can claim that it represents a form of religious belief. Nevertheless, religious sensibilities are generally represented through conservative parties.

In recent history, two parties have been ordered to close (Welfare Party (Turkish: Refah Partisi) in 1998 and Virtue Party (Turkish: Fazilet Partisi) in 2001) by the Constitutional Court for Islamist activities and attempts to "redefine the secular nature of the republic". The first party to be closed for suspected fundamentalist activities was the Progressive Republican Party on June 3, 1925.

The actual governing party in Turkey, the conservative Justice and Development Party (Turkish: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi or AKP) has often been accused of following an Islamist agenda.

Issues relating to Turkey's secularism were discussed in the lead up to the 2007 presidential elections, in which the ruling party chose a candidate with Islamic connections, Abdullah Gül, for the first time in its secular republic. While some in Turkey have expressed concern that the nomination could represent a move away from Turkey's secularist traditions, including particularly Turkey's priority on equality between the sexes, others have suggested that the conservative party has effectively promoted modernization while reaching out to more traditional and religious elements in Turkish society. On July 22, 2007 it was reported that the more religiously conservative ruling party won a larger than expected electoral victory in the parliamentary elections.

Turkey's preservation and maintenance of its secular identity has been a profound issue and source of tension. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has spoken out in favor of limited Islamism and against the active restrictions, instituted by Kemal Atatürk on wearing the Islamic-style head scarves in government offices and schools. The Republic Protests (Turkish: Cumhuriyet Mitingleri) were a series of peaceful mass rallies that took place in Turkey in the spring of 2007 in support of the Kemalist ideals of state secularism.

The constitutional rule that prohibits discrimination on religious grounds is taken very seriously. Turkey, as a secular country, prohibits by law the wearing of religious headcover and theo-political symbolic garments for both genders in government buildings, schools, and universities; a law upheld by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights as "legitimate" on November 10, 2005 in Leyla Şahin v. Turkey.

The strict application of secularism in Turkey has been credited for enabling women to have access to greater opportunities, compared to countries with a greater influence of religion in public affairs, in matters of education, employment, wealth as well as political, social and cultural freedoms.

Also paradoxical with the Turkish secularism is the fact that Identity document cards of Turkish citizens include the specification of the card holder's religion. This declaration was perceived for some as representing a form of the state's surveillance over its citizens' religious choices. However, in the application there is no case brought forward involving the identity document being a part in any discussions.

The mainstream Hanafite school of Sunni Islam is entirely organized by the state, through the Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı (Religious Affairs Directorate), which supervises all mosques, educates the imams who work in them, and approves all content for religious services and prayers. It appoints imams, who are classified as civil servants. This micromanagement of Sunni religious at times seems much more sectarian than secular as it violates the principle of state neutrality in religious practice. Groups that have expressed dissatisfaction with this situation include a variety of extra-governmental Sunni / Hanafi groups (such as the Nurci movement), whose interpretation of Islam tends to be more activist; and the non-Sunni Alevilik, whose members tend to resent supporting the Sunni establishment with their tax monies (the Turkish state does not subsidize Alevi religious activities).

Critics argue that the Turkish state's support for and regulation of Sunni religious institutions – including mandatory religious education for children deemed by the state to be Muslims – amount to de facto violations of secularism. Debate arises over the issue of to what degree religious observance ought to be restricted to the private sphere – most famously in connection with the issues of head-scarves and religious-based political parties (cf. Welfare Party, AKP). The issue of an independent Greek-orthodox seminary is also a matter of controversy in regard to Turkey's accession to the European Union.

With a policy of official secularism, the Turkish government has traditionally banned the wearing of headscarves by women who work in the public sector. The ban applies to teachers, lawyers, parliamentarians and others working on state premises. The ban on headscarves in the civil service and educational and political institutions was expanded to cover non-state institutions. Authorities began to enforce the headscarf ban among mothers accompanying their children to school events or public swimming pools, while female lawyers and journalists who refused to comply with the ban were expelled from public buildings such as courtrooms and universities. In 1999, the ban on headscarves in the public sphere hit the headlines when Merve Kavakçı, a newly elected MP for the Virtue Party was prevented from taking her oath in the National Assembly because she wore a headscarf. The constitutional rule that prohibits discrimination on religious grounds is taken very seriously. Turkey, as a secular country, prohibits by law the wearing of religious headcover and theo-political symbolic garments for both genders in government buildings, schools, and universities; a law upheld by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights as "legitimate" on November 10, 2005 in Leyla Şahin v. Turkey.

According to Country Reports 2007, women who wore headscarves and their supporters "were disciplined or lost their jobs in the public sector" (US 11 Mar. 2008, Sec. 2.c). Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports that in late 2005, the Administrative Supreme Court ruled that a teacher was not eligible for a promotion in her school because she wore a headscarf outside of work (Jan. 2007). An immigration counsellor at the Embassy of Canada in Ankara stated in 27 April 2005 correspondence with the Research Directorate that public servants are not permitted to wear a headscarf while on duty, but headscarved women may be employed in the private sector. In 12 April 2005 correspondence sent to the Research Directorate, a professor of political science specializing in women's issues in Turkey at Bogazici University in Istanbul indicated that women who wear a headscarf "could possibly be denied employment in private or government sectors." Conversely, some municipalities with a more traditional constituency might attempt to hire specifically those women who wear a headscarf (Professor 12 Apr. 2005). The professor did add, however, that headscarved women generally experience difficulty in obtaining positions as teachers, judges, lawyers, or doctors in the public service (ibid.). More recent or corroborating information on the headscarf ban in the public service could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate.

The London-based Sunday Times reports that while the ban is officially in place only in the public sphere, many private firms similarly avoid hiring women who wear headscarves (6 May 2007). MERO notes that women who wear headscarves may have more difficulty finding a job or obtaining a desirable wage (Apr. 2008), although this could not be corroborated among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate.

According to the Sunday Times, headscarves are banned inside Turkish hospitals, and doctors may not don a headscarf on the job (6 May 2007). Nevertheless, MERO reports that under Turkey's current administration, seen by secularists to have a hidden religious agenda (The New York Times 19 Feb. 2008; Washington Post 26 Feb. 2008), doctors who wear headscarves have been employed in some public hospitals (MERO Apr. 2008).

The Professor of political science at Bogazici University in Turkey stated that, in addition to never having come across any cases where women wearing headscarves had been denied access to medical care in private or public medical centres, he felt it would be unlikely that this would occur (12 Apr. 2005). The Immigration Counsellor at the Embassy of Canada in Ankara stated that "women who wear headscarves have full access to medical care (27 Apr. 2005).

On 9 February 2008, Turkey's parliament approved a constitutional amendment that lifted the ban on Islamic headscarves in universities. Prior to this date, the public ban on headscarves officially extended to students on university campuses throughout Turkey Nevertheless, according to Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2007, "some faculty members permitted students to wear head coverings in class". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty notes that since the 1990s, some rectors have allowed students to wear headscarves.

On 5 June 2008, Turkey's Constitutional Court annulled the parliament's proposed amendment intended to lift the headscarf ban, ruling that removing the ban would run counter to official secularism. While the highest court's decision to uphold the headscarf ban cannot be appealed (AP 7 June 2008), the government has nevertheless indicated that it is considering adopting measures to weaken the court's authority.

According to the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation and some sources, around 60% of women wear the headscarf in Turkey.

Many believe that the headscarf is for religious reasons, not for political movements. Turkey’s strong secularism has resulted in what have been perceived by some as strictures on the freedom of religion; for example, the headscarf has long been prohibited in public universities, and a constitutional amendment passed in February 2008 that permitted women to wear it on university campuses sparked considerable controversy. In addition, the armed forces have maintained a vigilant watch over Turkey’s political secularism, which they affirm to be a keystone among Turkey’s founding principles. The military has not left the maintenance of a secular political process to chance, however, and has intervened in politics on a number of occasions.

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Accession of Turkey to the European Union

Turkey's application to accede to the European Union (previously the European Communities) was made on 14 April 1987. Turkey has been an associate member of the European Union (EU) and its predecessors since 1963. After the eleven founding members, Turkey was one of the first countries to become a member of the Council of Europe in 1949, and was also a founding member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1961 and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 1973. It has also been an associate member of the Western European Union since 1992. Turkey signed a Customs Union agreement with the EU in 1995 and was officially recognised as a candidate for full membership on 12 December 1999, at the Helsinki summit of the European Council. Negotiations were started on 3 October 2005, and the process is likely to take at least a decade to complete. The membership bid has become a major controversy of the ongoing enlargement of the European Union.

The modern Republic of Turkey is the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, an Islamic power in Europe between the late 14th and the early 20th centuries; but by the 19th century it had sunk into a decline that led some to call it the "sick man of Europe." After the Empire's collapse following World War I, Turkish revolutionaries led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk emerged victorious in the Turkish War of Independence, establishing modern Turkey as it currently exists today. Atatürk, then Prime Minister and later President of Turkey, implemented a series of reforms that modernized the country and moved it more towards European culture. During World War II, Turkey remained neutral until February 1945, when it joined the Allies. During the Cold War, Turkey allied itself with the United States, taking part in the Marshall Plan in 1947, joining as a member state the Council of Europe in 1949, and joining NATO in 1952.

Turkey first applied for associate membership in the European Economic Community in 1959, and on 12 September 1963 signed the "Agreement Creating An Association Between The Republic of Turkey and the European Economic Community", also known as the Ankara Agreement. This agreement came into effect the following year on 12 December 1964. The Ankara Agreement sought to integrate Turkey into a customs union with the EEC whilst acknowledging the final goal of membership. In November 1970, a further protocol called the "Additional Protocol" established a timetable for the abolition of tariffs and quotas on goods traded between Turkey and the EEC.

1980 saw a temporary stop in relations as a result of the 1980 Turkish military coup following political and economic instability, though the recommencement of multiparty elections in 1983 saw Turkish-EEC relations fully restored. On 14 April 1987, Turkey submitted its application for formal membership into the European Community. The European Commission responded in December 1989 by confirming Ankara’s eventual membership but also by deferring the matter to more favorable times, citing Turkey’s economic and political situation, as well its poor relations with Greece and the conflict with Cyprus as creating an unfavorable environment with which to begin negotiations. This position was confirmed again in the Luxembourg European Council of 1997 in which accession talks were started with central and eastern European states and Cyprus, but not Turkey. During the 1990s, Turkey proceeded with a closer integration with the European Union by agreeing to a customs union in 1995. Moreover, the Helsinki European Council of 1999 proved a milestone as the EU recognised Turkey as a candidate on equal footing with other potential candidates.

With the 2002 election of the pro-European Justice and Development Party (AKP) led by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a number of reforms led to increasing stability both politically and economically. In 2004, as part of the drive to enter a reunified Cyprus into the EU, the Turkish government supported the UN-backed Annan Plan for Cyprus. This plan was accepted by Turkish Cypriots, but rejected by the Greek Cypriots. At the same time, a three-decade-long period of hyperinflation ended, with inflation reduced to 6% from annual levels of 75% during the mid-1990s.

The political reform program of the Erdoğan government continued. This included the abolition of capital punishment, crackdown on torture, and more rights for its Kurdish population. In response to these developments, the European Commission recommended that the negotiations should begin in 2005, but also added various precautionary measures. The EU leaders agreed on 16 December 2004 to start accession negotiations with Turkey from 3 October 2005. Despite an offer from the Austrian People's Party and the German Christian Democratic Union of a privileged partnership status, a less than full membership, EU accession negotiations were officially launched.

Turkey's accession talks have since been dogged by a number of domestic and external problems. Several European states such as Austria have made their reluctance to allow Turkey into Europe clear. The issue of Cyprus continues to be a major obstacle to negotiations. European officials have commented on the slowdown in Turkish reforms which, combined with the Cyprus problem, has led the EU’s enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn to warn of an impeding ‘train crash’ in negotiations with Turkey. Due to these setbacks, negotiations again came to a halt in December 2006, with the EU freezing talks in 8 of the 35 key areas under negotiation.

The earliest date that Turkey could enter the EU is 2013, the date when the next financial perspectives (the EU's six year budgetary perspectives) will come into force. Ankara is currently aiming to comply with EU law by this date, but Brussels has refused to back 2013 as a deadline. It is believed that the accession process will take at least until 2021.

In order to accede to the EU, Turkey must first successfully complete negotiations with the European Commission on each of the 35 chapters of the EU's acquis and then the member states must unanimously agree to Turkish membership. Public opinion in EU countries generally opposes Turkish membership, though with varying degrees of intensity, although political leaders and politicians of the European Union generally support it. Some countries, notably France and Austria, have discussed putting the decision to a referendum.

Turkey’s entry into the EU may have profound consequences on the future direction of the EU. The issues mentioned by some of those objecting to Turkey's EU candidacy can be divided among those inherent to Turkey's situation, those that involve internal issues about human rights, democracy, and related matters, and those concerning Turkey's open external disputes with its neighbours. There is much contention over whether some of these arguments are used as proxies to hide a feeling that the country is not culturally European and therefore should be denied entry.

Proponents of Turkey's membership argue that it's a key regional power with a large economy and the second largest military force of NATO that will enhance the EU's position as a global geostrategic player; given Turkey's geographic location and economic, political, cultural and historic ties in regions with large natural resources that are at the immediate vicinity of the EU's geopolitical sphere of influence; such as the East Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts, the Middle East, the Caspian Sea basin and Central Asia.

Upon joining the EU, Turkey's 71 million inhabitants would bestow it the second largest number of MEPs in the European Parliament. Demographic projections indicate that Turkey would surpass Germany in the number of seats by 2020.

EU member states must unanimously agree on Turkey's membership for the Turkish accession to be successful. A number of nations can oppose it, notably Austria, which historically served as a bulwark for Christian Europe against the Ottoman Empire; and France, which is fearful of the prospect of another wave of Muslim immigrants, especially given the poor integration of its existing Muslim minority.

Attempts to change the French constitution to remove the compulsory referendum on all EU accessions after Croatia resulted in a new clause requiring compulsory referendums on the accession of all countries with a population of more than 5% of the EU's total population; this clause would apply to Turkey and Ukraine. The French Senate, however, blocked the change in the French constitution, in order to maintain good relations with Turkey.

Turkey, a developed country, has the seventh largest economy in the Council of Europe and the fifteenth largest economy in the world. Turkey is a founding member of the OECD and the G-20 major economies.

Turkey's GDP growth rate from 2002 to 2007 averaged 7.4%, which made it one of the fastest growing economies in the world during that period. And, despite a global economic slowdown in 2008, real GDP growth for the year was a respectable 4.5%. Turkey's economy is no longer dominated by traditional agricultural activities in the rural areas, but more so by a highly dynamic industrial complex in the major cities, mostly concentrated in the western provinces of the country, along with a developed services sector. In 2007, the agricultural sector accounted for 8.9% of the GDP, while the industrial sector accounted for 30.8% and the services sector accounted for 59.3%. The tourism sector has experienced rapid growth in the last twenty years, and constitutes an important part of the economy. In 2008, there were 30,929,192 visitors to the country, who contributed 21.9 billion USD to Turkey's revenues. Other key sectors of the Turkish economy are banking, construction, home appliances, electronics, textiles, oil refining, petrochemical products, food, mining, iron and steel, machine industry and automotive. Turkey has a large and growing automotive industry, which produced 1,147,110 motor vehicles in 2008, ranking as the 6th largest automotive producer in Europe in that year; behind Germany (5,819,614), France (3,174,260), Spain (2,770,435), the United Kingdom (1,648,388), and Italy (1,211,594), respectively. Turkey is also one of the leading shipbuilding nations; in 2007 the country ranked 4th in the world (behind China, South Korea and Japan) in terms of the number of ordered ships, and also 4th in the world (behind Italy, USA and Canada) in terms of the number of ordered mega yachts.

Turkey has taken advantage of a customs union with the European Union, signed in 1995, to increase its industrial production destined for exports, while at the same time benefiting from EU-origin foreign investment into the country. In 2008, Turkey's exports reached 132.0 billion USD (main export partners: Germany 11.2%, UK 8%, Italy 6.95%, France 5.6%, Spain 4.3%, USA 3.88%; total EU exports 56.5%.) However, larger imports amounting to about 201.8 billion USD threaten the balance of trade (main import partners: Russia 13.8%, Germany 10.3%, China 7.8%, Italy 6%, USA 4.8%, France 4.6%, Iran 3.9%, UK 3.2%; total EU imports 40.4%; total Asia imports 27%).

Turkey's per-capita GDP places it among the upper-middle income countries. In 2006, Eurostat calculated the minimum monthly wage in Turkey as €331, which was larger than the minimum monthly wage in nine European Union member states, namely Bulgaria (€82), Romania (€90), Latvia (€129), Lithuania (€159), Slovakia (€183), Estonia (€192), Poland (€234), Hungary (€247) and the Czech Republic (€261).

According to Forbes magazine, Istanbul, Turkey's financial capital, had a total of 35 billionaires as of March 2008 (up from 25 in 2007), ranking 4th in the world behind Moscow (74 billionaires), New York City (71 billionaires) and London (36 billionaires), while ranking above Hong Kong (30 billionaires), Los Angeles (24 billionaires), Mumbai (20 billionaires), San Francisco (19 billionaires), Dallas (15 billionaires) and Tokyo (15 billionaires).

The opening of talks regarding the Economic and Monetary Policy acquis chapter of Turkey's accession bid was expected to begin in June 2007, but were stalled by France.

Statistics show that the birth rate is declining in the entire continent of Europe. Especially in Eastern Europe and Russia, population growth is negative. The EU member states already set a goal to solve the impact of the aging population. Turkey has a young population. This might act as a balance for the increasingly aging populations of the current EU.

As of 2005, the population of Turkey stood at 72.6 million with a growth rate of 1.5% per annum. The Turkish population is relatively young, with 25.5% falling within the 0–15 age bracket. Population growth is expected to slow, as Turkey has a sub-replacement fertility level.

According to statistics released by the government in 2005, life expectancy stands at 68.9 years for men and 73.8 years for women, with an overall average of 71.3 years for the populace as a whole. Education is compulsory and free from ages six to 15.

The Turkish people, are an ethnic group, defined more by a sense of sharing a common Turkish culture and having a Turkish mother tongue, than by citizenship, religion or by being subjects to any particular country.

The word Turk or Turkish also has a wider meaning in a historical context because, at times in the past, it has been used to refer to all Muslim inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire irrespective of their ethnicity. The question of ethnicity in modern Turkey is a highly debated and difficult issue. Figures published in several different sources prove this difficulty by varying greatly.

The territory of Turkey is more than 1,600 kilometres (1,000 mi) long and 800 km (500 mi) wide, with a roughly rectangular shape. Turkey's area, inclusive of lakes, occupies 783,562 square kilometres (300,948 sq mi), of which 755,688 square kilometres (291,773 sq mi) are in Southwest Asia and 23,764 square kilometres (9,174 sq mi) in Europe, thus making Turkey a transcontinental country. Turkey's area makes it the world's 37th-largest country, and is about the size of Metropolitan France and the United Kingdom combined.

Ankara, the Turkish capital, is in Anatolia, the Asian part of Turkey. Istanbul, Turkey's most populous city, and its cultural and financial centre, is the only metropolis in the world which is situated on two continents. Istanbul was chosen as European Capital of Culture for 2010.

Turkey's membership would mean that the European Union's external borders would reach the Middle Eastern neighbors of Turkey, such as Syria, Iraq and Iran.

The island of Cyprus is still divided after the Turkish invasion in 1974, following a coup d'etat by Nikos Sampson against the Cypriot government of Archbishop Makarios III and fully supported by the Greek military junta of 1967-1974 in Athens under its de facto leader Brigadier General Dimitrios Ioannides. Turkey's original intention, which was declared on July 20, 1974, by the Prime Minister of that period, Bülent Ecevit, was to prevent the island's annexation to Greece and to bring an end to the Cypriot intercommunal violence which took place between 1963 and 1974. Since 1974, Turkey refuses to acknowledge the Republic of Cyprus (an EU member since 2004) as the sole authority on the island, and recognises the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the north. Turkey and Turkish Cypriots backed the 2004 Annan Plan for Cyprus aimed at the reunification of the island, but the plan was subsequently rejected by Greek Cypriots on the grounds that it did not meet their needs. According to Cypriots, the latest proposal included maintained residence rights for the many Anatolian Turks that were brought to Cyprus after the invasion and their descendants, and Greek-Cypriots who lost their property after the Turkish invasion would be granted only a restricted right of return. Although the outcome received much criticism in the EU as well, the Republic of Cyprus was admitted into the EU a week after the referendum.

The Turkish government has refused to officially recognise the state of Republic of Cyprus until the removal of the political and economic blockade on the TRNC. Turkey's non-recognition of the Republic of Cyprus has led to complications within the Customs Union. Under the customs agreements Turkey already signed as a precondition to start negotiations in 2005, it is obliged to open its ports to Cypriot planes and vessels, but Turkey refuses this and insists it will only do so after the EU proposal to open up direct trade with the Turkish Cypriots and provide €259,000,000 in funds to help them upgrade their infrastructure is fulfilled. Greek Cypriots have subsequently threatened to veto accession talks unless Turkey complies.

Greece has been supportive overall of Turkish membership, with Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis declaring, "Full compliance, full accession" in December 2006. In 2005 the European Commission referred to relations between Turkey and Greece as "continuing to develop positively" while also citing the lack of progress made by Turkey in dropping their claim of casus belli over a dispute about territorial waters boundaries.

Turkey has a secular constitution, with no official state religion. Nominally, though, 99% of the Turkish population is Muslim of whom over 70% belong to the Sunni branch of Islam. A sizeable minority, about over 25% of the Muslim population, is affiliated with the Shi'a Alevi sect. The Bektashi belong to a Sufi order of Islam that is indigenous to Turkey, but also has numerous followers in the Balkan peninsula, particularly in Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, FYR Macedonia, Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria. The Christians (Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Gregorian, Syriac, Protestant) and Jews (Sephardic, Ashkenazi) are the two other sizable religious minorities in the country. Turkey would be the first Muslim-majority country to join the European Union, although Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina, also Muslim-majority, have been recognized as potential candidate countries.

The number of practising Muslims, Christians, Jews or followers of other faiths is not known, because newborn babies are automatically registered to the faith of their parents (in most cases the father) and this remains as such on their identification papers, unless they have it changed or removed with a court's order after reaching the age of 18. Official population census polls in Turkey do not include information regarding a person's religious belief or ethnic background due to the regulations set by the Turkish constitution, which defines all citizens of the Republic of Turkey as Turkish in terms of nationality, regardless of faith or race.

There is a strong tradition of secularism in Turkey. The state has no official religion nor promotes any, and actively monitors the area between the religions. The constitution recognizes the freedom of religion for individuals, whereas religious communities are placed under the protection of the state; but the constitution explicitly states that they cannot become involved in the political process (by forming a religious party, for instance) or establish faith-based schools. No party can claim that it represents a form of religious belief; nevertheless, religious sensibilities are generally represented through conservative parties. Turkey prohibits by law the wearing of religious headcover and theo-political symbolic garments for both genders in government buildings, schools, and universities; the law was upheld by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights as "legitimate" in the Leyla Şahin v. Turkey case on 10 November 2005.

The EU was especially critical of this law during the September 2005 trial of novelist Orhan Pamuk over comments that recognized the deaths of thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians. Enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn and members of the European Parliament called the case "regrettable", "most unfortunate", and "unacceptable". After the case was dropped three months later, Turkey's Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül indicated that Turkey may abandon or modify Article 301, stating that "there may be need for a new law". In September 2006, the European Parliament called for the abolition of laws, such as Article 301, "which threaten European free speech norms". On April 30, 2008, the law was reformed. According to the reform, it is now a crime to explicitly insult the "Turkish nation" rather than "Turkishness"; opening court cases based on Article 301 require the approval of the Justice Minister; and the maximum punishment has been reduced to two years in jail.

Kemal Kerinçsiz, an ultra-nationalist lawyer, and other members of Büyük Hukukçular Birliği (Great Jurists Union) headed by Kerinçsiz, have been "behind nearly all of trials." In January 2008, Kerinçsiz was arrested for participating in an ultra-nationalist underground organization, Ergenekon, allegedly behind the attacks on the Turkish Council of State and Cumhuriyet newspaper, the assassination of several Christian missionaries and Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, as well as allegedly plotting the assassination of Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk.

In its second report on women's role in social, economic and political life in Turkey, the European Parliament emphasized that respecting human rights, including women’s rights, is a condition sine qua non for Turkey's membership of the EU. According to the report, Turkey's legal framework on women's rights "has in general been satisfactory, but its substantive implementation remains flawed".

Turkey is one of the two states (with Azerbaijan) among the 47 members of the Council of Europe which has refused to recognize the status of conscientious objectors or give them an alternative to military service.

Public opinion in EU countries generally opposes Turkish membership, though with varying degrees of intensity. The Eurobarometer September-October 2006 survey shows that 59% of EU-27 citizens are against Turkey joining the EU, while only about 28% are in favour. Nearly all citizens (about 9 in 10) expressed concerns about human rights as the leading cause. In the earlier March-May 2006 Eurobarometer, citizens from the new member states were more in favour of Turkey joining (44% in favour) than the old EU-15 (38% in favour). At the time of the survey, the country whose population most strongly opposed Turkish membership was Austria (con: 81%), while Romania was most in favour of the accession (pro: 66%). On a wider political scope, the highest support comes from the Turkish Cypriot Community (pro: 67%) (which is not recognised as sovereign state and is de facto not EU territory and out of the European institutions). These communities are even more in favour of the accession than the Turkish populace itself (pro: 54%). Opposition in Denmark to Turkish membership was polled at 60% in October 2007, despite the Danish government's support for Turkey's EU bid.

The opening of membership talks with the EU in December 2004 was celebrated by Turkey with much fanfare, but the Turkish populace has become increasingly skeptical as negotiations are delayed based on what it views as lukewarm support for its accession to the EU and alleged double standards in its negotiations (France and Austria have indicated they will hold referendums on Turkey's membership). A mid-2006 Eurobarometer survey revealed that 43% of Turkish citizens view the EU positively; just 35% trust the EU, 45% support enlargement and just 29% support an EU constitution.

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Turkey

Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye), known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( Türkiye Cumhuriyeti (help·info)), is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in western Asia and Thrace (Rumelia) in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan (the exclave of Nakhichevan) and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. The Mediterranean Sea and Cyprus are to the south; the Aegean Sea and Archipelago are to the west; and the Black Sea is to the north. Separating Anatolia and Thrace are the Sea of Marmara and the Turkish Straits (the Bosporus and the Dardanelles), which are commonly reckoned to delineate the border between Asia and Europe, thereby making Turkey transcontinental.

Due to its strategic location astride two continents, Turkey's culture has a unique blend of Eastern and Western tradition. A powerful regional presence in the Eurasian landmass with strong historic, cultural and economic influence in the area between Europe in the west and Central Asia in the east, Russia in the north and the Middle East in the south, Turkey has come to acquire increasing strategic significance.

Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic whose political system was established in 1923 under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, following the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I. Since then, Turkey has become increasingly integrated with the West through membership in organizations such as the Council of Europe, NATO, OECD, OSCE and the G-20 major economies. Turkey began full membership negotiations with the European Union in 2005, having been an associate member of the EEC since 1963, and having reached a customs union agreement in 1995. Meanwhile, as a Muslim-majority country, Turkey has continued to foster close cultural, political, economic and industrial relations with the Eastern world, particularly with the states of the Middle East and Central Asia, through membership in organizations such as the OIC and ECO. Turkey is classified as a developed country by the CIA and as a regional power by political scientists and economists worldwide.

The name of Turkey, Türkiye in the Turkish language, can be divided into two words: Türk, which means "Strong" in Old Turkic and usually signifying the inhabitants of Turkey or a member of the Turkish or Turkic peoples, a later form of "Tu–kin", a name given by the Chinese to the people living south of the Altay Mountains of Central Asia as early as 177 BCE; and the abstract suffix –iye (derived from the Arabic suffix –iyya, but also associated with the Medieval Latin suffix –ia in Turchia, and the Medieval Greek suffix –ία in Τουρκία), which means "owner" or "related to". The first recorded use of the term "Türk" or "Türük" as an autonym is contained in the Orkhon inscriptions of the Göktürks (Sky Turks) of Central Asia (c. 8th century CE). The English word "Turkey" is derived from the Medieval Latin "Turchia" (c. 1369).

The Anatolian peninsula (also called Asia Minor), comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest continually inhabited regions in the world due to its location at the intersection of Asia and Europe. The earliest Neolithic settlements such as Çatalhöyük (Pottery Neolithic), Çayönü (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A to Pottery Neolithic), Nevali Cori (Pre-Pottery Neolithic B), Hacilar (Pottery Neolithic), Göbekli Tepe (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A) and Mersin are considered to be among the earliest human settlements in the world. The settlement of Troy starts in the Neolithic and continues into the Iron Age. Through recorded history, Anatolians have spoken Indo-European, Semitic and Kartvelian languages, as well as many languages of uncertain affiliation. In fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical center from which the Indo-European languages have radiated.

The first major empire in the area was that of the Hittites, from the 18th through the 13th century BCE. Subsequently, the Phrygians, an Indo-European people, achieved ascendancy until their kingdom was destroyed by the Cimmerians in the 7th century BCE. The most powerful of Phrygia's successor states were Lydia, Caria and Lycia. The Lydians and Lycians spoke languages that were fundamentally Indo-European, but both languages had acquired non-Indo-European elements prior to the Hittite and Hellenistic periods.

Starting around 1200 BC, the west coast of Anatolia was settled by Aeolian and Ionian Greeks. The entire area was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire during the 6th and 5th centuries and later fell to Alexander the Great in 334 BCE. Anatolia was subsequently divided into a number of small Hellenistic kingdoms (including Bithynia, Cappadocia, Pergamum, and Pontus), all of which had succumbed to Rome by the mid-1st century BCE. In 324 CE, the Roman emperor Constantine I chose Byzantium to be the new capital of the Roman Empire, renaming it New Rome (later Constantinople and Istanbul). After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it became the capital of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire).

The House of Seljuk was a branch of the Kınık Oğuz Turks who in the 9th century resided on the periphery of the Muslim world, north of the Caspian and Aral Seas in the Yabghu Khaganate of the Oğuz confederacy. In the 10th century, the Seljuks started migrating from their ancestral homelands towards the eastern regions of Anatolia, which eventually became the new homeland of Oğuz Turkic tribes following the Battle of Manzikert (Malazgirt) in 1071. The victory of the Seljuks gave rise to the Anatolian Seljuk Sultanate; which developed as a separate branch of the larger Seljuk Empire that covered parts of Central Asia, Iran, Anatolia and Southwest Asia.

In 1243, the Seljuk armies were defeated by the Mongols and the power of the empire slowly disintegrated. In its wake, one of the Turkish principalities governed by Osman I was to evolve into the Ottoman Empire, thus filling the void left by the collapsed Seljuks and Byzantines.

The Ottoman Empire interacted with both Eastern and Western cultures throughout its 623-year history. In the 16th and 17th centuries, it was among the world's most powerful political entities, often locking horns with the Holy Roman Empire in its steady advance towards Central Europe through the Balkans and the southern part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on land; and with the combined forces (Holy Leagues) of Habsburg Spain, the Republic of Venice and the Knights of St. John at sea for the control of the Mediterranean basin; while frequently confronting Portuguese fleets at the Indian Ocean for defending the Empire's monopoly over the ancient maritime trade routes between East Asia and Western Europe, which had become increasingly compromised since the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope in 1488.

Following years of decline, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I through the Ottoman-German Alliance in 1914, and was ultimately defeated. After the war, the victorious Allied Powers sought the dismemberment of the Ottoman state through the Treaty of Sèvres.

The occupation of İstanbul and İzmir by the Allies in the aftermath of World War I prompted the establishment of the Turkish national movement. Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha, a military commander who had distinguished himself during the Battle of Gallipoli, the Turkish War of Independence was waged with the aim of revoking the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres. By September 18, 1922, the occupying armies were repelled and the country saw the birth of the new Turkish state. On November 1, the newly founded parliament formally abolished the Sultanate, thus ending 623 years of Ottoman rule. The Treaty of Lausanne of July 24, 1923, led to the international recognition of the sovereignty of the newly formed "Republic of Turkey" as the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, and the republic was officially proclaimed on October 29, 1923, in the new capital of Ankara.

Mustafa Kemal became the republic's first president and subsequently introduced many radical reforms with the aim of founding a new secular republic from the remnants of its Ottoman past. According to the Law on Family Names, the Turkish parliament presented Mustafa Kemal with the honorific name "Atatürk" (Father of the Turks) in 1934.

Turkey entered World War II on the side of the Allies on February 23, 1945 as a ceremonial gesture and became a charter member of the United Nations in 1945. Difficulties faced by Greece after the war in quelling a communist rebellion, along with 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 US military and economic support.

After participating with the United Nations forces in the Korean conflict, Turkey joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1952, becoming a bulwark against Soviet expansion into the Mediterranean. Following a decade of intercommunal violence on the island of Cyprus and the Greek military coup of July 1974, overthrowing President Makarios and installing Nikos Sampson as dictator, Turkey intervened militarily in 1974. Nine years later the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) was established. The TRNC is recognised only by Turkey.

Following the end of the single-party period in 1945, the multi-party period witnessed tensions over the following decades, and the period between the 1960s and the 1980s was particularly marked by periods of political instability that resulted in a number of military coups d'états in 1960, 1971, 1980 and a post-modern coup d'état in 1997. The liberalization of the Turkish economy that started in the 1980s changed the landscape of the country, with successive periods of high growth and crises punctuating the following decades.

Turkey is a parliamentary representative democracy. Since its foundation as a republic in 1923, Turkey has developed a strong tradition of secularism. Turkey's constitution governs the legal framework of the country. It sets out the main principles of government and establishes Turkey as a unitary centralized state.

The head of state is the President of the Republic and has a largely ceremonial role. The president is elected for a five-year term by direct elections. The last President, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, was elected on May 16, 2000, after having served as the President of the Constitutional Court. He was succeeded on August 28, 2007, by Abdullah Gül. Executive power is exercised by the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers which make up the government, while the legislative power is vested in the unicameral parliament, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature, and the Constitutional Court is charged with ruling on the conformity of laws and decrees with the constitution. The Council of State is the tribunal of last resort for administrative cases, and the High Court of Appeals for all others.

The Prime Minister is elected by the parliament through a vote of confidence in his government and is most often the head of the party that has the most seats in parliament. The current Prime Minister is the former mayor of İstanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose conservative AKP won an absolute majority of parliamentary seats in the 2002 general elections, organized in the aftermath of the economic crisis of 2001, with 34% of the suffrage. In the 2007 general elections, the AKP received 46.6% of the votes and could defend its majority in parliament. Neither the Prime Minister nor the Ministers have to be members of the parliament, but in most cases they are (one notable exception was Kemal Derviş, the Minister of State in Charge of the Economy following the financial crisis of 2001; he is currently the president of the United Nations Development Programme).

Universal suffrage for both sexes has been applied throughout Turkey since 1933, and every Turkish citizen who has turned 18 years of age has the right to vote. As of 2004, there were 50 registered political parties in the country, whose ideologies range from the far left to the far right. The Constitutional Court can strip the public financing of political parties that it deems anti-secular or separatist, or ban their existence altogether.

There are 550 members of parliament who are elected for a four-year term by a party-list proportional representation system from 85 electoral districts which represent the 81 administrative provinces of Turkey (İstanbul is divided into three electoral districts whereas Ankara and İzmir are divided into two each because of their large populations). To avoid a hung parliament and its excessive political fragmentation, only parties that win at least 10% of the votes cast in a national parliamentary election gain the right to representation in the parliament. As a result of this threshold, the 2007 elections saw three parties formally entering the parliament (compared to two in 2002). However, due to a system of alliances and independent candidatures, seven parties are currently represented in the parliament. Independent candidates may run; however, they must also win at least 10% of the vote in their circonscription to be elected.

Turkey is a founding member of the United Nations (1945), the OECD (1961), the OIC (1969), the OSCE (1973), the ECO (1985), the BSEC (1992) and the G-20 major economies (1999). On October 17, 2008, Turkey received the votes of 151 countries and was elected as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, on behalf of the Western European and Others Group, together with Austria which received 132 votes. Turkey's membership of the council will effectively begin on January 1, 2009. Turkey had previously been a member of the U.N. Security Council in 1951-1952, 1954-1955 and 1961.

In line with its traditional Western orientation, relations with Europe have always been a central part of Turkish foreign policy. Turkey became a founding member of the Council of Europe in 1949, applied for associate membership of the EEC (predecessor of the European Union) in 1959 and became an associate member in 1963. After decades of political negotiations, Turkey applied for full membership of the EEC in 1987, became an associate member of the Western European Union in 1992, reached a Customs Union agreement with the EU in 1995 and has officially begun formal accession negotiations with the EU on October 3, 2005. It is believed that the accession process will take at least 15 years due to Turkey's size and the depth of disagreements over certain issues. These include disputes with EU member Republic of Cyprus over Turkey's 1974 military intervention to prevent the island's annexation to Greece. Since then, Turkey does not recognize the essentially Greek Cypriot Republic of Cyprus as the sole authority on the island, but instead supports the Turkish Cypriot community in the form of the de facto Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

The other defining aspect of Turkey's foreign relations has been its ties with the United States. Based on the common threat posed by the Soviet Union, Turkey joined NATO in 1952, ensuring close bilateral relations with Washington throughout the Cold War. In the post-Cold War environment, Turkey's geostrategic importance shifted towards its proximity to the Middle East, the Caucasus and the Balkans. As well as hosting an important NATO air base near Syria and Iraq for U.S. operations in the region, Turkey's status as a secular democracy and its positive relations with Israel made Ankara a crucial ally for Washington. In return, Turkey has benefited from the United States' political, economic and diplomatic support, including in key issues such as the country's bid to join the European Union.

Since the late 1980s, Turkey began to increasingly cooperate with the leading economies of East Asia, particularly with Japan and South Korea, on a large number of industrial sectors; ranging from the co-production of automotive and other transportation equipment, such as high-speed train sets, to electronical goods, home appliances, construction materials and military hardware.

The independence of the Turkic states of the Soviet Union in 1991, with whom Turkey shares a common cultural and linguistic heritage, allowed Turkey to extend its economic and political relations deep into Central Asia. The most salient of these relations saw the completion of a multi billion dollar oil and natural gas pipeline from Baku in Azerbaijan to the port of Ceyhan in Turkey. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, as it is called, has formed part of Turkey's foreign policy strategy to become an energy conduit to the West. However, Turkey's border with Armenia, a state in the Caucasus, remains closed following its occupation of Azeri territory during the Nagorno-Karabakh War. Relations with Armenia have been further strained by the controversy surrounding the forced deportations and related deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the last days of the Ottoman Empire, recognised by a number of countries and historians as the Armenian Genocide. Turkey rejects the term genocide, arguing instead that the deaths were a result of disease, famine and inter-ethnic strife.

The Turkish Armed Forces consists of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. The Gendarmerie and the Coast Guard operate as parts of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in peacetime, although they are subordinated to the Army and Navy Commands respectively in wartime, during which they have both internal law enforcement and military functions.

The Turkish Armed Forces is the second largest standing armed force in NATO, after the U.S. Armed Forces, with a combined strength of 1,043,550 uniformed personnel serving in its five branches. Every fit male Turkish citizen otherwise not barred is required to serve in the military for a time period ranging from three weeks to fifteen months, dependent on education and job location. Turkey does not recognise conscientious objection and does not offer a civilian alternative to military service.

In 1998, Turkey announced a program of modernization worth US$160 billion over a twenty year period in various projects including tanks, fighter jets, helicopters, submarines, warships and assault rifles. Turkey is also a Level 3 contributor to the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program, gaining an opportunity to develop and influence the creation of the next generation fighter spearheaded by the United States.

Turkey has maintained forces in international missions under the United Nations and NATO since 1950, including peacekeeping missions in Somalia and former Yugoslavia, and support to coalition forces in the First Gulf War. Turkey maintains 36,000 troops in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and has had troops deployed in Afghanistan as part of the U.S. stabilization force and the UN-authorized, NATO-commanded International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) since 2001. In 2006, the Turkish parliament deployed a peacekeeping force of Navy patrol vessels and around 700 ground troops as part of an expanded United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in the wake of the Israeli-Lebanon conflict.

The Chief of the General Staff is appointed by the President, and is responsible to the Prime Minister. The Council of Ministers is responsible to the parliament for matters of national security and the adequate preparation of the armed forces to defend the country. However, the authority to declare war and to deploy the Turkish Armed Forces to foreign countries or to allow foreign armed forces to be stationed in Turkey rests solely with the parliament. The actual Commander of the armed forces is the Chief of the General Staff General İlker Başbuğ who succeeded General Yaşar Büyükanıt on August 30, 2008.

The capital city of Turkey is Ankara. The territory of Turkey is subdivided into 81 provinces for administrative purposes. The provinces are organized into 7 regions for census purposes; however, they do not represent an administrative structure. Each province is divided into districts, for a total of 923 districts.

Provinces usually bear the same name as their provincial capitals, also called the central district; exceptions to this custom are the provinces of Hatay (capital: Antakya), Kocaeli (capital: İzmit) and Sakarya (capital: Adapazarı). Provinces with the largest populations are İstanbul (+12 million), Ankara (+4.4 million), İzmir (+3.7 million), Bursa (+2.4 million), Adana (+2.0 million) and Konya (+1.9 million).

The biggest city and the pre-Republican capital İstanbul is the financial, economic and cultural heart of the country. Other important cities include İzmir, Bursa, Adana, Trabzon, Malatya, Gaziantep, Erzurum, Kayseri, Kocaeli, Konya, Mersin, Eskişehir, Diyarbakır, Antalya and Samsun. An estimated 70.5% of Turkey's population live in urban centers. In all, 18 provinces have populations that exceed 1 million inhabitants, and 21 provinces have populations between 1 million and 500,000 inhabitants. Only two provinces have populations less than 100,000.

Turkey is a transcontinental Eurasian country. Asian Turkey (made up largely of Anatolia), which includes 97% of the country, is separated from European Turkey by the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles (which together form a water link between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean). European Turkey (eastern Thrace or Rumelia in the Balkan peninsula) includes 3% of the country.

The territory of Turkey is more than 1,600 kilometres (1,000 mi) long and 800 km (500 mi) wide, with a roughly rectangular shape. Turkey's area, inclusive of lakes, occupies 783,562 square kilometres (300,948 sq mi), of which 755,688 square kilometres (291,773 sq mi) are in Southwest Asia and 23,764 square kilometres (9,174 sq mi) in Europe. Turkey's area makes it the world's 37th-largest country, and is about the size of Metropolitan France and the United Kingdom combined. Turkey is encircled by seas on three sides: the Aegean Sea to the west, the Black Sea to the north and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Turkey also contains the Sea of Marmara in the northwest.

The European section of Turkey, in the northwest, is Eastern Thrace, and forms the borders of Turkey with Greece and Bulgaria. The Asian part of the country, Anatolia (also called Asia Minor), consists of a high central plateau with narrow coastal plains, between the Köroğlu and East-Black Sea mountain range to the north and the Taurus Mountains to the south. Eastern Turkey has a more mountainous landscape, and is home to the sources of rivers such as the Euphrates, Tigris and Aras, and contains Lake Van and Mount Ararat, Turkey's highest point at 5,165 metres (16,946 ft).

Turkey is geographically divided into seven regions: Marmara, Aegean, Black Sea, Central Anatolia, Eastern Anatolia, Southeastern Anatolia and the Mediterranean. The uneven north Anatolian terrain running along the Black Sea resembles a long, narrow belt. This region comprises approximately one-sixth of Turkey's total land area. As a general trend, the inland Anatolian plateau becomes increasingly rugged as it progresses eastward.

Turkey's varied landscapes are the product of complex earth movements that have shaped the region over thousands of years and still manifest themselves in fairly frequent earthquakes and occasional volcanic eruptions. The Bosporus and the Dardanelles owe their existence to the fault lines running through Turkey that led to the creation of the Black Sea. There is an earthquake fault line across the north of the country from west to east, which caused a major earthquake in 1999.

The coastal areas of Turkey bordering the Mediterranean Sea have a temperate Mediterranean climate, with hot, dry summers and mild, wet and cold winters. Conditions can be much harsher in the more arid interior. Mountains close to the coast prevent Mediterranean influences from extending inland, giving the central Anatolian plateau of the interior of Turkey a continental climate with sharply contrasting seasons. Winters on the plateau are especially severe. Temperatures of −30 °C to −40 °C (−22 °F to -40 °F) can occur in the mountainous areas in the east, and snow may lie on the ground 120 days of the year. In the west, winter temperatures average below 1 °C (34 °F). Summers are hot and dry, with temperatures generally above 30 °C (86 °F) in the day. Annual precipitation averages about 400 millimetres (15 in), with actual amounts determined by elevation. The driest regions are the Konya plain and the Malatya plain, where annual rainfall frequently is less than 300 millimetres (12 in). May is generally the wettest month, whereas July and August are the most dry.

Turkey is a founding member of the OECD and the G-20 major economies.

During the first six decades of the Republic, between 1923 and 1983, Turkey has mostly adhered to a quasi-statist approach with strict government planning of the budget and government-imposed limitations over private sector participation, foreign trade, flow of foreign currency, and foreign direct investment. However, starting from 1983, Turkey began a series of reforms that were initiated by Prime Minister Turgut Özal and designed to shift the economy from a statist, insulated system to a more private-sector, market-based model. The reforms spurred rapid growth, but this growth was punctuated by sharp recessions and financial crises in 1994, 1999 (following the earthquake of that year), and 2001, resulting in an average of 4% GDP growth per annum between 1981 and 2003. Lack of additional fiscal reforms, combined with large and growing public sector deficits and widespread corruption, resulted in high inflation, a weak banking sector and increased macroeconomic volatility.

Since the economic crisis of 2001 and the reforms initiated by the finance minister of the time, Kemal Derviş, inflation has fallen to single-digit numbers, investor confidence and foreign investment have soared, and unemployment has fallen. The IMF forecasts a 6% inflation rate for Turkey in 2008. Turkey has gradually opened up its markets through economic reforms by reducing government controls on foreign trade and investment and the privatisation of publicly owned industries, and the liberalisation of many sectors to private and foreign participation has continued amid political debate.

The GDP growth rate from 2002 to 2007 averaged 7.4%, which made Turkey one of the fastest growing economies in the world during that period. The World Bank forecasts a 5.4% GDP growth rate for Turkey in 2008. Turkey's economy is no longer dominated by traditional agricultural activities in the rural areas, but more so by a highly dynamic industrial complex in the major cities, mostly concentrated in the western provinces of the country, along with a developed services sector. In 2007, the agricultural sector accounted for 8.9% of the GDP, while the industrial sector accounted for 30.8% and the services sector accounted for 59.3%.

The tourism sector has experienced rapid growth in the last twenty years, and constitutes an important part of the economy. In 2008, there were 30,929,192 visitors to the country, who contributed 21.9 billion USD to Turkey's revenues.

Other key sectors of the Turkish economy are banking, construction, home appliances, electronics, textiles, oil refining, petrochemical products, food, mining, iron and steel, machine industry and automotive. Turkey has a large and growing automotive industry, which produced 1,024,987 motor vehicles in 2006, ranking as the 6th largest automotive producer in Europe in that year; behind Germany (5,819,614), France (3,174,260), Spain (2,770,435), the United Kingdom (1,648,388), and Italy (1,211,594), respectively. Turkey is also one of the leading shipbuilding nations; in 2007 the country ranked 4th in the world (behind China, South Korea and Japan) in terms of the number of ordered ships, and also 4th in the world (behind Italy, USA and Canada) in terms of the number of ordered mega yachts.

In recent years, the chronically high inflation has been brought under control and this has led to the launch of a new currency, the New Turkish Lira, on January 1, 2005, to cement the acquisition of the economic reforms and erase the vestiges of an unstable economy. On January 1, 2009, the New Turkish Lira was renamed once again as the Turkish Lira, with the introduction of new banknotes and coins. As a result of continuing economic reforms, inflation has dropped to 8.2% in 2005, and the unemployment rate to 10.3%. In 2004, it was estimated that 46.2% of total disposable income was received by the top 20% income earners, while the lowest 20% received 6%.

Turkey has taken advantage of a customs union with the European Union, signed in 1995, to increase its industrial production destined for exports, while at the same time benefiting from EU-origin foreign investment into the country. In 2005, exports amounted to 73.5 billion USD while the imports stood at 116.8 billion USD, with increases of 16.3% and 19.7% compared to 2004, respectively. For 2006, the exports amounted to 85.8 billion USD, representing an increase of 16,8% over 2005. In 2007 the exports reached 115.3 billion USD (main export partners: Germany 11.2%, UK 8%, Italy 6.95%, France 5.6%, Spain 4.3%, USA 3.88%; total EU exports 56.5%.) However, larger imports amounting to about 162.1 billion USD threaten the balance of trade (main import partners: Russia 13.8%, Germany 10.3%, China 7.8%, Italy 6%, USA 4.8%, France 4.6%, Iran 3.9%, UK 3.2%; total EU imports 40.4%; total Asia imports 27%).

After years of low levels of foreign direct investment (FDI), Turkey succeeded in attracting 21.9 billion USD in FDI in 2007 and is expected to attract a higher figure in following years. A series of large privatizations, the stability fostered by the start of Turkey's EU accession negotiations, strong and stable growth, and structural changes in the banking, retail, and telecommunications sectors have all contributed to a rise in foreign investment.

The population of Turkey stood at 71.5 million with a growth rate of 1.31% per annum, based on the 2008 Census. It has an average population density of 92 persons per km². The proportion of the population residing in urban areas is 70.5%. People within the 15–64 age group constitute 66.5% of the total population, the 0–14 age group corresponds 26.4% of the population, while 65 years and higher of age correspond to 7.1% of the total population. According to the CIA Factbook, life expectancy stands at 70.67 years for men and 75.73 years for women, with an overall average of 73.14 years for the populace as a whole. Education is compulsory and free from ages 6 to 15. The literacy rate is 95.3% for men and 79.6% for women, with an overall average of 87.4%. The low figures for women are mainly due to the traditional customs of the Arabs and Kurds who live in the southeastern provinces of the country.

Article 66 of the Turkish Constitution defines a "Turk" as "anyone who is bound to the Turkish state through the bond of citizenship"; therefore, the legal use of the term "Turkish" as a citizen of Turkey is different from the ethnic definition. However, the majority of the Turkish population are of Turkish ethnicity. Other major ethnic groups (large portions of whom have been extensively Turkicized since the Seljuk and Ottoman periods) include the Abkhazians, Adjarians, Albanians, Arabs, Assyrians, Bosniaks, Circassians, Hamshenis, Kurds, Laz, Pomaks, Roma, Zazas and the three officially recognized minorities (per the Treaty of Lausanne), i.e. the Armenians, Greeks and Jews. There is also a population of Afro-Turks within Turkey who mostly live in the western coastal cities of the country and are largely mixed with the local population through intermarriage. Minorities of West European origin include the Levantines (Turkish: Levanten, English: Levanter, mostly of French, Genoese and Venetian descent) who have been present in the country (particularly in Istanbul and Izmir) since the medieval period; or the Bosporus Germans and Istanbul Poles who have lived in Turkey since the 19th century. The Kurds, a distinct ethnic group concentrated mainly in the southeastern provinces of the country, are the largest non-Turkic ethnicity. Minorities other than the three officially recognized ones do not have any special group privileges, while the term "minority" itself remains a sensitive issue in Turkey. Reliable data on the exact ethnic repartition of the population is not available since the Turkish census figures do not include racial figures. Turkish is the sole official language throughout Turkey. Reliable figures for the linguistic repartition of the populace are not available for reasons similar to those cited above. Nevertheless, the public broadcaster TRT broadcasts programmes in local languages and dialects of Arabic, Bosnian, Circassian and Kurdish a few hours a week. A fully fledged Kurdish language television channel, TRT 6, was opened in early 2009.

Turkey is officially a secular republic, with no official state religion; the Turkish Constitution provides the freedom of religion and conscience, but does not represent or promote a religion. The population of Turkey is predominantly Muslim (99%), the majority are Sunni (75%) and a large minority are Alevi (15-25%). The remainder of the population are mainly Christians (mostly Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic) and Jews (96% Sephardi and 4% Ashkenazi.) According to a nationwide survey in 2007, 96.8% of Turkish citizens have a religion, while 3.2% are irreligious and atheists. 56% of male Muslim citizens regularly attend Friday prayers. According to a Pew Research Center report in 2002, 65% of the people believe "religion is very important", while according to a Eurobarometer poll in 2005, 95% of citizens responded that they believe "there is a God".

Turkey has a very diverse culture that is a blend of various elements of the Oğuz Turkic, Anatolian, Ottoman (which was itself a continuation of both Greco-Roman and Islamic cultures) and Western culture and traditions, which started with the Westernization of the Ottoman Empire and still continues today. This mix originally began as a result of the encounter of Turks and their culture with those of the peoples who were in their path during their migration from Central Asia to the West. As Turkey successfully transformed from the religion-based former Ottoman Empire into a modern nation-state with a very strong separation of state and religion, an increase in the methods of artistic expression followed. During the first years of the republic, the government invested a large amount of resources into fine arts; such as museums, theatres, opera houses and architecture. Because of different historical factors playing an important role in defining the modern Turkish identity, Turkish culture is a product of efforts to be "modern" and Western, combined with the necessity felt to maintain traditional religious and historical values.

Turkish music and literature form great examples of such a mix of cultural influences, which were a result of the interaction between the Ottoman Empire and the Islamic world along with Europe, thus contributing to a blend of Turkic, Islamic and European traditions in modern-day Turkish music and literary arts. Turkish literature was heavily influenced by Persian and Arabic literature during most of the Ottoman era, though towards the end of the Ottoman Empire, particularly after the Tanzimat period, the effect of both Turkish folk and European literary traditions became increasingly felt. The mix of cultural influences is dramatized, for example, in the form of the "new symbols the clash and interlacing of cultures" enacted in the works of Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Architectural elements found in Turkey are also testaments to the unique mix of traditions that have influenced the region over the centuries. In addition to the traditional Byzantine elements present in numerous parts of Turkey, many artifacts of the later Ottoman architecture, with its exquisite blend of local and Islamic traditions, are to be found throughout the country, as well as in many former territories of the Ottoman Empire. Sinan is widely regarded as the greatest architect of the classical period in Ottoman architecture. Since the 18th century, Turkish architecture has been increasingly influenced by Western styles, and this can be particularly seen in Istanbul where buildings like the Blue Mosque and the Dolmabahçe Palace are juxtaposed next to numerous modern skyscrapers, all of them representing different traditions.

The most popular sport in Turkey is football. Turkey's top teams include Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe and Beşiktaş. In 2000, Galatasaray cemented its role as a major European club by winning the UEFA Cup and UEFA Super Cup. Two years later the Turkish national team finished third in the 2002 World Cup Finals in Japan and South Korea, while in 2008 the national team reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Euro 2008 competition. The Atatürk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul hosted the 2005 UEFA Champions League Final, while the Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium in Istanbul will host the 2009 UEFA Cup Final.

Other mainstream sports such as basketball and volleyball are also popular. Turkey hosted the Finals of EuroBasket 2001 and will also host the Finals of the 2010 FIBA World Championship. The men's national basketball team finished second in EuroBasket 2001 and reached the quarter-finals of the 2006 FIBA World Championship; while Efes Pilsen S.K. won the Korac Cup in 1996, finished second in the Saporta Cup of 1993, and made it to the Final Four of Euroleague and Suproleague in 2000 and 2001. Turkish basketball players such as Mehmet Okur and Hidayet Türkoğlu have also been successful in the NBA. Women's volleyball teams, namely Eczacıbaşı and Vakıfbank Güneş Sigorta, have won numerous European championship titles and medals.

The traditional Turkish national sport has been the Yağlı güreş (Oiled Wrestling) since Ottoman times. Edirne hosts the annual Kırkpınar oiled wrestling tournament since 1361. International wrestling styles governed by FILA such as Freestyle wrestling and Greco-Roman wrestling are also popular, with many European, World and Olympic championship titles won by Turkish wrestlers both individually and as a national team. Another major sport in which the Turks have been internationally successful is weightlifting; as Turkish weightlifters, both male and female, have broken numerous world records and won several European, World and Olympic championship titles. Naim Süleymanoğlu and Halil Mutlu have achieved legendary status as one of the few weightlifters to have won three gold medals in three Olympics.

Motorsports have become popular recently, especially following the inclusion of the Rally of Turkey to the FIA World Rally Championship calendar in 2003, and the inclusion of the Turkish Grand Prix to the Formula 1 racing calendar in 2005. Other important annual motorsports events which are held at the Istanbul Park racing circuit include the MotoGP Grand Prix of Turkey, the FIA World Touring Car Championship, the GP2 Series and the Le Mans Series. From time to time Istanbul and Antalya also host the Turkish leg of the F1 Powerboat Racing championship; while the Turkish leg of the Red Bull Air Race World Series, an air racing competition, takes place above the Golden Horn in Istanbul. Surfing, snowboarding, skateboarding, paragliding and other extreme sports are becoming more popular every year.

1 Has part of its territory outside Europe.  2 Entirely in West Asia but having socio-political connections with Europe.  3 Has dependencies or similar territories outside Europe. 4 Name disputed by Greece; see Macedonia naming dispute. 5 Declared independence from Serbia on February 17, 2008 and is recognised by 56 United Nations member states.

For dependent and other territories, see Dependent territory.

1 Partly or significantly in Europe.  2 The Republic of China (Taiwan) is not officially recognized by the United Nations; see Political status of Taiwan. 3 Partly or significantly in Africa.  4 Partly or wholly reckoned in Oceania.

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List of Prime Ministers of Turkey

This is a chronological list of Prime Ministers of Turkey, since the establishment of that position in 1920, during the Turkish War of Independence.

Prime Minister must be elected by majority of votes in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey along with other members of the Cabinet of Turkey.

1 Entirely in Southwest Asia; included here because of cultural, political and historical association with Europe. 2 Partially or entirely in Asia, depending on the definition of the border between Europe and Asia.

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Politics of Turkey

Politics of Turkey takes place in a framework of a strictly secular parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the Prime Minister of Turkey is the head of government, and of a multi-party system.

Turkey's political system is based on a separation of powers. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. Its current constitution was adopted on November 7, 1982 after a period of military rule, and enshrines the principle of secularism.

The function of head of state is performed by the president (Cumhurbaşkanı). A president is elected every five years by the Grand National Assembly. The president does not have to be a member of parliament. The current, President Abdullah Gül, was elected by Parliament on August 28, 2007. Executive power rests with the prime minister (Başbakan) and the Council of Ministers (Bakanlar Kurulu). The ministers don't have to be members of Parliament (an example is Kemal Derviş). The prime minister is elected by the parliament through a vote of confidence in his government. The prime minister is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose Islamic conservative AKP won a majority of parliamentary seats in the 2002 general elections. The Chairman of the Parliament is Köksal Toptan; from the same party. The current president of the Constitutional Court is Haşim Kılıç. The Chief of Staff of the Turkish military is İlker Başbuğ.

Legislative power is invested in the 550-seat Grand National Assembly of Turkey (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi), representing 81 provinces. The members are elected for a five year term by mitigated proportional representation with an election threshold of 10%. To be represented in Parliament, a party must win at least 10% of the national vote in a national parliamentary election. Independent candidates may run, and to be elected, they must only win 10% of the vote in the province from which they are running. The Turkish military plays an informal political role, seeing itself as the guardian of the secular, unitary nature of the republic. Political parties deemed anti-secular or separatist by the judiciary can be banned. Turkey has a multi-party system, with several strong parties.

The threshold is set to be reduced.

These principles are the continuum around which various - and often rapidly changing - political parties and groups have campaigned (and sometimes fought). On a superficial level, the importance which state officials attach to these principles and their posts can be seen in their response to breaches of protocol in official ceremonies.

Since 1950, parliamentary politics has been dominated by conservative parties. Even the ruling AKP, although its core cadres root from the Islamist current, tends to identify itself with the "tradition" of DP. The leftist parties, most notable of which is CHP, with a stable electorate, draw much of their support from big cities, coastal regions, professional middle-class, and minority groups such as Alevis and Kurds.

13 members of the Democratic Left Party were elected under the Republican People's Party banner.

The AKP won 46.76% of the vote giving them 341 parliamentary seats. CHP received 20.64%, which translating to control of 110 seats. MHP took third place with 14.33%, giving the party 71 seats. The independents (whose majority are the leftist pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party candidates) won 28 seats. The DTP is the successor to the previous pro-Kurdish party, the DHP. Independent candidates are not subject to the 10% threshold constraint placed on political parties. European Union officials welcomed the AKP's sweeping victory, describing it as "a mandate for the reforms it wants Turkey to complete during its membership talks." The AKP nonetheless lacks the two-thirds majority in parliament necessary to push through legislation.

The freedom and independence of the Judicial System is protected within the constitution. There is no organization, person, or institution which can interfere in the running of the courts, and the executive and legislative structures must obey the courts' decisions. The courts, which are independent in discharging their duties, must explain each ruling on the basis of the provisions of the Constitution, the laws, jurisprudence, and their personal convictions.

The Judicial system is highly structured. Turkish courts have no jury system; judges render decisions after establishing the facts in each case based on evidence presented by lawyers and prosecutors. For minor civil complaints and offenses, justices of the peace take the case. This court has a single judge. It has jurisdiction over misdemeanors and petty crimes, with penalties ranging from small fines to brief prison sentences. Three-judge courts of first instance have jurisdiction over major civil suits and serious crimes. Any conviction in a criminal case can be taken to a court of Appeals for judicial review.

All courts are open to the public. When a case is closed to the public, the court has to publish the reason. Judge and prosecution structures are secured by the constitution. Except with their own consent, no judge or prosecutor can be dismissed, have his/her powers restricted, or be forced to retire. However, the retirement age restrictions do apply. The child courts have their own structure.

A judge can be audited for misconduct only with the Ministry of Justice's permission, in which case a special task force of justice experts and senior judges is formed.

The High Council of Judges and Public Prosecutors is the principal body charged with responsibility for ensuring judicial integrity, and determines professional judges acceptance and court assignments. Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is still in head of the High Council.

Turkey is adapting a new national "Judicial Networking System" (UYAP). The court decisions and documents (case info, expert reports, etc) will be accessible via the Internet.

Turkey accepts the European Court of Human Rights' decisions as a higher court decision. Turkey also accepts as legally binding any decisions on international agreements.

Since Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founded the modern secular Republic of Turkey in 1923, the Turkish military has perceived itself as the guardian of Kemalism, the official state ideology, even though Atatürk himself insisted on separating the military from politics. The Turkish Armed Forces still maintain an important degree of influence over Turkish politics and the decision-making process regarding issues related to Turkish national security, albeit decreased in the past decades, via the National Security Council.

The military has had a record of intervening in politics. Indeed, it assumed power for several periods in the latter half of the 20th century. It executed coup d'etats in 1960, 1971, and 1980. Most recently, it maneuvered the removal of the Islamic-oriented prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, in 1997.

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Justice and Development Party (Turkey)

The Justice and Development Party (Turkish: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi or AK Parti, or AKP†) is the incumbent Turkish political party. The AKP portrays itself as a moderate, conservative, pro-Western party that advocates a liberal market economy and Turkish membership in the European Union. In 2005, the AKP was granted observer membership in the European People's Party. The AKP won 46.6% of the popular vote and was allocated 341 seats in the rescheduled 22 July 2007 elections. While the total vote share represented a massive increase over the 34% of the vote it received in the 2002 general election, the AKP ultimately garnered fewer seats as a result of the MHP passing the 10% total vote threshold necessary to claim parliamentary seats. Abdullah Gül, a prominent AKP leader and former Foreign Minister, is currently the President of Turkey, while Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the head of the party and the Prime Minister.

A reformist faction (Turkish: yenilikçiler)inside the former Islamist party founded AKP. The Refah (Welfare) Pary was in power before and carried on the political islamist tradition, Milli Görüş (National View)to Fazilet from 1970 contionously. Disputes between the reformists and the traditionalists in the Virtue Party caused the formation of the Justice and Development Party on August 14, 2001, after several members resigned such as Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Abdullah Gul, Bulent Arinc; following the congress of the Virtue Party.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, leader of the AK Party, stated that "AK Party is not a political party with a religious axis" when the party was founded. Critics accused it of harboring a hidden agenda.

Erdoğan’s AK Party shifted the focus of religiously-affiliated politics from concern over Turkey’s lack of Islamic characteristics to pushing for democratic and economic reforms in addition to stressing moral values through the communitarian-liberal consensus. Erdoğan also sought to temper his party’s Islamist image by building a broad-reaching coalition with members of centre-right parties, and by promising to further Turkey’s bid to join the European Union. Erdoğan also positioned the AKP as the opposition party to the old, secular, state-driven development parties that had been proven ineffective by the repeated economic crises of the 1990s and early 2000s.

After some initial stumbling, notably when Erdoğan was temporarily blocked from taking up the Prime Ministership, the AK Party has found its feet. It survived the crisis over the 2003 invasion of Iraq despite a massive back bench rebellion where over a hundred AKP MPs joined those of the opposition Republican People's Party in parliament to prevent the government from allowing the United States to launch a Northern offensive in Iraq from Turkish territory.

The AK Party has undertaken tructural reforms, and during its rule Turkey has seen rapid growth and an end to its three decade long period of hyperinflation—inflation had fallen to 8.8% by June 2004. Influential business publications such as The Economist consider the AK Party's government the most successful in Turkey in decades.

In the local elections of 2004, the AK Party won a 42% of the votes, making inroads against the secular nationalist Republican People's Party (CHP) on the South and West Coasts, and against the Social Democratic People's Party (Turkey), which is supported by some Kurds in the Southeast of Turkey.

In January 2005, the AK Party was admitted as an observer member in the European People's Party (EPP), the conservative party of the EU. It is likely to become a full member of the EPP if Turkey is admitted to the EU. If the EU eventually rejects Turkey for membership, however, many fear that the AKP could again split between its reformist and conservative factions, heralding another period of instability in Turkish politics.

The AKP has brought on many changes that are interpreted as being non-secular or rooted in Islam. In 2005, AKP banned the sale of alcoholic beverages in a section of Ankara which was mostly occupied by bars and restaurants. This ban was soon lifted due to the response from the area's business owners; however, a licensing requirement still remains for the establishments. AKP has also been accused of placing anti-secular individuals in government offices and giving out government contracts to parties with a reputation for being rooted in Islam. In 2007 AKP passed a bill lifting the headscarf ban in all universities. This action was criticized by the secular parties, and led to the 2008 indictments calling for the Party's outlaw.

Upon being indicted, the AKP government has made multiple arrests in the secular population. This has been interpreted as the final attempt to rid the country of powerful secularists before the party's possible closure. On August 5, 2008, President Abdullah Gul, assigned 21 new deans to all government Universities after the verdict of the party closure trials. The Turkish media, released that all newly placed deans were for the lift of the headscarf ban. On August 9, 2008, Edibe Sozen, an AKP parliament member, proposed establishing a prayer section in all schools, and to ban the sales of pornographic images to anyone under the age of 16. The the proposed bill also included that anyone over 16 purchasing the content, would be logged via, Citizen Identification Number. In 2004, in providence of Istanbul, Muammer Guler, the mayor of Istanbul, passed a bill banning all publicly displayed images, including advertisements, containing partial nudity such as swim suit advertisements.

The AKP achieved victory in the rescheduled July 22, 2007 elections with 46.6% of the vote, translating into control of 341 of the 550 available parliamentary seats. Although the AK Party received significantly more votes in 2007 than in 2002, the number of parliamentary seats they controlled decreased due to the rules of the Turkish electoral system. However, they retain a comfortable ruling majority.“Don’t Stop, Keep Going On!” was the slogan of the Justice and Development Party in the general elections of 2007.

Territorially, the elections of 2007 saw a major advance for the AK Party, with the party outpolling the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party in traditional Kurdish strongholds such as Van and Mardin, as well as outpolling the secular-left CHP in traditionally secular areas such as Antalya and Artvin. Overall, the AKP secured a plurality of votes in 68 of Turkey's 81 provinces, with its strongest vote of 71% coming from Bingöl. Its weakest vote, a mere 12%, came from Tunceli, the only Turkish province where the Alevi sect form a majority.

This judicial manoeuvre came after a similar suggestion by retired general Doğu Silahçıoğlu in February. Silahçıoğlu has been named as the possible leader of the Ergenekon network, whose suspected members are currently undergoing a high-profile trial. Hinting at Ergenekon, retired intelligence officer Mahir Kaynak says that the closure case was motivated by the group's desire to stop the AKP and remake society.

The chief prosecutor's office made the "chief prosecutor file" public on 14 March 2008. Prime Minister Erdoğan and his deputies immediately convened the governing body to discuss the chief prosecutor file the next day. The Constitutional Court reviewed the file and unanimously accepted the indictment.

The Constitutional Court reviewed both the initial response of the AK party and its technical position and developed questions regarding the positions. The court's questions were presented to the AK Party officials. Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek presented the AK Party's defense testimony in court. A court-appointed rapporteur, Osman Can, advocated in his report that the Court should reject the closure case.

After deliberating for three days, the court gave its verdict on 30 July 2008. AKP (Justice and Development Party) was found guilty of becoming the focus of anti-secularist actions. A qualified majority of seven out of eleven votes is required to disband a political party. Six members of the Court voted in favour of disbanding the party, thus falling short of the required qualified majority by one vote. Four members voted to cut government funding for the party, while the Court leader rejected to close it down. The Court rejected most of the demands of the prosecutor and did not ban the party, however it determined the party as the focus of actions that are anti-secular and halved its funding from the Central Bank as a penalty.

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Denial of the Armenian Genocide

Denial of the Armenian Genocide is the assertion that the Armenian Genocide did not occur in the manner or to the extent described by scholarship.

The Armenian Genocide is widely acknowledged outside Turkey to have been one of the first modern, systematic genocides, as many Western sources point to the sheer scale of the death toll as evidence for a systematic, organized plan to eliminate the Armenians.

The Republic of Turkey does not accept that the Ottoman authorities attempted to exterminate the Armenian people. Turkey acknowledges that during World War I many Armenians died, but counters that Turks died as well, and that massacres were committed on both sides as a result of inter-ethnic violence and the wider conflict of World War I. The denial of the Armenian Genocide is often criticized by genocide scholars and historians, in particular as a crucial symbolic and ideological process which follows every genocide after it has taken place which is intended to desensitize and to make possible the emergence of new forms of genocidal violence to peoples in the future.

According to historians, while there is debate about its exact circumstances; "there can be no doubt about the fact of genocide itself. In this sense, the denial of the Armenian genocide is very similar to the denial of the Holocaust of the Jews".

However, three historians specializing in the Middle East - Bernard Lewis, Justin McCarthy, and Heath Lowry, all who are members of the Institute of Turkish Studies, as well as the late Stanford Shaw from the Bilkent University, Ankara and independent scholars Guenter Lewy and Eberhard Jäckel are critical of the Armenian Genocide term.

The use of specific terminologies regarding the issue are debated, such as the word "deportation". Deniers claim that some of the specific words do not fit the realities of the period or they are not substantiated by the facts.

The term "Genocide" has been subject to critical consideration.

Turkey adhered to the Genocide Convention in 1950, after two years United Nations General Assembly voted in 1948.

With regard to the charge of genocide, the Chamber finds that in spite of evidence of acts perpetrated in the municipalities which constituted the actus reus of genocide, the Chamber has not received sufficient evidence to establish whether the perpetrators had genocidal intent, that is the intent to destroy, the Bosnian-Muslim or Bosnian-Croat ethnic group, as such.

The Krajisnik case made it clear that as the Genocide Convention specifically includes "intent to destroy", in whole or in part, a protected group, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the suspect intended (or was part of a criminal conspiracy that intended) to destroy the group, and that this is different from crimes against humanity where there does not have to be intent to destroy a group, just an action that kills many people. This is why Krajisnik was found guilty of multiple instances of participation in crimes against humanity across Bosnia but not participating in a general Bosnian genocide.

When other alleged genocides are debated, it is not enough to show that crimes against humanity were committed, because there must be intent to destroy a substantial part of the targeted group. It can be very difficult years or even decades after the event to prove the mens rea (intent) component of genocide even if there is ample evidence that crimes against humanity were committed that fulfil the actus reus (the destruction of the group requirement). This may be because there was no intent, or that the decision to commit genocide was not well documented at the time, or that given the odium attached to genocide that the perpetrators of a genocide, or their descendants, have destroyed any paper trail that could prove genocide. This means that determining if a genocide took place in the past is often a matter of judgement based on incomplete information about the intent of the perpetrators and whether they intended to commit genocide.

Turkish historians have conceptual problems with a "Broad Genocide of Armenians" which is presented as; "(a)The Turks invaded Armenia and seized its land. (b)They applied a systematic massacre against Armenians since the 1877-1878 war. (c)They resorted to a plan against Armenians from 1915 onward Regarding this definition of "Armenian Genocide" Turkish sources claim that "... has never hesitated to go to such extremes as ... to make the claims of genocide against Armenians heard and their demands known ..." The roots of "broader sense" form of genocide definition lies in the unresolved conflict paradigm, this definition of genocide "remain in the clash of interest in the past and the present". If the Armenian Genocide begins with the events after 1877-1878 war, these events are more comprehensible if one looks with the concept of rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire.

Currently, regarding the activities performed under Tehcir Law, May 1915, the Republic of Turkey rejects the use of the word "deportation" and "refugee". Turkey uses the terminology "deportation" for expulsion of foreigners (the expulsion of natives is usually called banishment, exile, or transportation) or extradition. Turkey instead uses the words "relocation" and "immigrant," respectively. Turkey claims that all the destination regions were within the Ottoman Empire's borders. According to revisionist historians, the Ottoman government recognized these "immigrants" as its citizens and took extensive measures to record the type, quantity, and value of their property, as well as the names of the owners and where they were sent.

The term "denial" has itself been subject to critical consideration by deniers.

From the "Armenian perspective" use proffers an alternative account of the events, the inevitable norm of education in Turkey is a defense of this account. Thus, by virtue of merely being educated in Turkey, an unawareness of any tenable alternative viewpoint may cause a Turkish national to be accused of "denying" something she or he has never had an opportunity to know in the first place. Turkish state revisionism is further helped by the fact that, as a result of the alphabet reform of 1928 (which changed the Turkish script from an Arabic alphabet to a Latin-based alphabet) the vast majority of Turks are unable to read Ottoman-period newspapers, letters, or diaries.

Only in the 1980s did the controversy become public through the work of Kamuran Gürün. Other Turkish institutions followed Gürün. The basic thesis of genocide was only then tested by gathering and organizing the decades-old records and data on the conflict and its casualties. Also at this time, political and military analysis of the crisis began. Since the initial exposure, academic analysis has proceeded to find the underlying conditions of the Empire and the Armenians, with the aim of understanding history to prepare for the future, rather than preserving national pride.

Turkish sources state: "the measures adopted regarding the Armenians in Eastern Anatolia was merely a replacement in another region within the Empire for security reasons". Turkish sources using Ottoman historical documents "on the other hand, the Party of Union and Progress came to power embracing the Armenians, and never developed an anti-Armenian doctrine even if Union and Progress turned to Turkism in time." According to the official Turkey, it is also historically evident that the Union and Progress was responsive to the needs, and desires of the Armenians citizens and they passed Armenian reform package. They also say, there is great amount of historical data exits to support "within the conditions of the day Ottoman parliament adopted the “Tehcir Law” (27 May 1915), the reasons for the taking of this decision, which was contemplated as provisional were: The Armenians living at regions near the war zones hinder the movements of the Turkish armed forces; harden the logistical support to the soldiers; share the same goals and collaborate with the enemy; attack the troops and innocent civilians within the country’s boundaries; and show the fortified regions to the enemy forces.". The Turkish sources claim "intent of the process" (deportation or relocation) was written in the law. They also claim there was vast amounts of evidence which supports Ottoman Empire acted according to what the written law stated and legislated according to conditions. In support, Ottoman Archives are open to public and Turkish historians published five volumes of Ottoman Security dispatches between 1914-1918 related to Ottoman Armenian insurgent activities, as "Arşiv Belgeleriyle Ermeni Faaliyetleri 1914-1918" Vol I Vol II Vol III Vol IV Vol V .

Heather Rae marks that "scholars have long been denied access to Ottoman archives". In the late 1980s access was granted to some archives by the Turkish government, but it appears that the material was limited and the government took a very selective approach to who was allowed to study the material.. Historian Taner Akcam also writes about the "carefully selection" of Ottoman archive materials. "While we are missing a significant portion of these papers, what remains in the Ottoman archives and in court records is sufficiant to show that the CUP Central Committee, and the Special Organization is set up to carry out its plan, did deliberately attempt to destroy the Armenian population".

While World War I was unfolding in the Middle East and shattering the Ottoman Empire, some members of the two primary nationalist groups within the state, the Armenians and the "Arab revolt", called for armed struggle against the Ottomans. Christian Armenians were located in both the Russian and Ottoman Empires. Some Armenians insisted that their people support the Ottoman government, as Armenians were placed in the Ottoman bureaucracy, but other Armenians claimed that only the Russian Tsar, by virtue of shared religion, was the protector of all Armenians. In eastern Anatolia, during the Caucasus Campaign some of the Ottoman Armenian population, often following the Armenian radical nationalists, engaged in open warfare, these activities are summarized under Armenian resistance. The Zeitun Resistance, which lasted three months from August 30, 1914 to December 1, 1914, resulted in the report that Armenians defeated all the Ottoman troops sent against them.

In April 1915, shortly after the Van resistance, an Armenian government was proclaimed in Van, the Administration for Western Armenia. Following these events, April 25 was the onset of the Allied campaign to drive towards the Ottoman capitol (see Battle of Gallipoli). The day before Battle of Gallipoli, Talat Pasha took a decision on April 24, 1915 with the internal codes given by the archive code BOA. DH. ŞFR, nr.52/96,97,98. Talat Pasha ordered the governors of the Ottoman Empire to (a) arrest the members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Hentchak and other groups involved with the Armenian national liberation movement, (b) collect documents from party houses and (c) destroy all arms seized in the process. Beginning April 24, there were Armenian notables deported from the Ottoman capital in 1915. The Ottoman Empire wanted to destroy the Armenian resistance and the Turkish authorities today hold the position that the deaths incurred by Armenians as a whole were the result of the turmoil of World War I and that the Ottoman Empire was fighting against Russia, Armenian volunteer units, and the Armenian militia. The Turkish authorities further assert that claims of massacre which ignore the actions of the Armenian resistance movements, are not established historical fact, and therefore grounds for denial that an Armenian Genocide ever took place.

Furthermore, they contend that there was a political movement towards creating a "Republic of Armenia". The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the Balkanization process were in the same period, and may obfuscate the actual events.

They note that in 1915 there was only one railway that connects west-east and that the path of what it considers relocation was not a conspiracy to exterminate Armenians. Turkish authorities strongly reject claims that the locations of the camps which are mentioned in some sources are a result of a conspiracy to bury Armenians in deserts. Deir ez-Zor is a district along the Euphrates and one of the unique places far away from any military activity; thus, Deir ez-Zor's selection as a burying site in a deserted location is rejected. They attribute the graves in these areas to difficulties of traveling under very hard conditions. The conditions of these camps reflected the condition of the Ottoman Empire. The Empire was facing the Gallipoli landings in the west, and the Caucasus Campaign in the east.

Under international law, ethnic cleansing of itself is not enough to show that genocide has taken place as it must be accompanied by the biological destruction of the group.

Regarding the "process of relocation" under the Tehcir Law, arguments disputing the similarities to the ethnic cleansing (Holocaust) are as follows: (a) there is no record of (neither from origination archives nor from destination archives in Syria) an effort to develop a systematic process and efficient means of killing, (b) there are no lists or other methods for tracing the Armenian population to assemble and kill as many people as possible, (c) there was no resource allocation to exterminate Armenians (biological, chemical warfare allocations), and the use of morphine as a mass extermination agent is not accepted; in fact, there was a constant increase in food and support expenses and these efforts continued after the end of deportations, (d) there is no record of Armenians in forced deportations being treated as prisoners, (e) the claims regarding prisoners apply only to the leaders of the Armenian militia, but did not extend to ethnic profiling; the size of the security force needed to develop these claims was beyond the power of the Ottoman Empire during 1915, (f) there is no record of prisons designed or built to match the claims of a Holocaust, (g) there were no public speeches organized by the central government targeting Armenians.

The security of the immigrants were under the responsibility of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman authorities present the facts that some companies had been attacked before they reached their settlement regions. They summarize these attacks; present the fact that the roads between Aleppo and Meskene resulted in many deaths. Other events were located at Diyarbekir to Zor and from Saruc to Halep through Menbic road. Companies have also faced with local attacks from the local tribes in the Diyarbekir, Mamuretülaziz and Bitlis regions. Various eyewitness accounts of Armenian civilians being killed by the Ottoman soldiers they were under command of are usually discounted by revisionist historians.

The Turkish authorities maintain the position that the Ottoman Empire did not exercise the degree of control which the opposing parties claim. Turkey accepts that there were Armenian deaths as a result of Ottoman decisions, but states that the responsible Ottoman bureaucrats and military personnel were tried. Bernard Lewis believes that what he names the "tremendous massacres" were not "a deliberate preconceived decision of the Ottoman government." The Dutch historian Erik Zürcher believes that the reported killings during the application of Tehcir law were ordered not by the Ottoman government itself, but only a small circle. He supported his claims, in particular, with the trials held by court martial involving several hundred soldiers guilty of massacres, as early as 1916. Zürcher believes that the killings are properly likened to the Srebrenica massacres rather than the Holocaust.

There is no consensus between Western scholars and some Turkish scholars on which casualties should be directly assigned to Ottoman Empire. Western historians say that the before and after WWI Armenian population difference should be used. The Ottoman Armenian population before 1914 gains importance in this perspective. According to the official Turkey, Western publications use partial statistics (conflict regions) like Turkish Armenia, Anatolia, Ottoman Armenia, Asiatic Turkey, 6 Armenian Villeyets, 9 Armenian Villeyets etc. Historians like Yusuf Halacoglu, claims that Ottoman Empire should only be responsible from "deportations" and brings forward lower figures of Armenian casualties.

Based on studies of the Ottoman census by Justin McCarthy and on contemporary estimates, it is said that far fewer than 1.5 million Armenians lived in the relevant areas before the war. Estimates of deaths are thus lowered, ranging from 600,000 to 200,000 between 1914 and the Armistice of Mudros. In addition, it is said that these deaths are not all related to the deportations, nor should they all be attributed to the Ottoman authorities.

Yusuf Halacoglu, president the Turkish Historical Society (TTK), presented even lower figures of Armenian casualties. He estimates that with the deportations (excluding inter-ethnic violence) total of 56,000 Armenians perished during the period due to war conditions, and less than 10,000 were actually killed. This study is still absent from Turkish foreign affairs publications.

According to Turkish activists, 517,955 Muslim civilians were massacred in this era by Armenian irregular units and Armenian revolutionary groups compromised of the Dashnaks, the Hunchaks, and the Ramgavars, in addition to the French Armenian Legion and the British and Russian backed Armenian volunteer units.

The plight of Ottoman Muslims throughout the 19th and 20th centuries is also mentioned. According to the historian Mark Mazower, Turkey resents the fact that the West is ignorant of the fate of millions of Muslims expelled from the Balkans and Russia, and would consider any apology towards Armenians as a confirmation of the anti-Turkish sentiment held by Western powers for centuries. Mazower recognizes a genocide of the Armenians, but he notes "Even today, no connection is made between the genocide of the Armenians and Muslim civilian losses: the millions of Muslims expelled from the Balkans and the Russian Empire through the long 19th century remain part of Europe's own forgotten past. Indeed, the official Turkish response is invariably to remind critics of this fact — an unconvincing justification for genocide, to be sure, but an expression of underlying resentment".

Regarding the famine and starvation arguments; Turkish authorities acknowledges that many Armenians died, but says Muslim millet (Turks) of the Empire died too. The most horrible cases, which happened to occur around the region that is currently Syria (part of Ottoman Empire until end of war), was covered in a detailed article (the whole of Greater Syria, and thus including Akkar) by Linda Schatkowski Schilcher. This study lists what she views as eight basic factors, contributing to as many as 500,000 deaths of the Syrians in the 1915-1918 period: (a) The Entente powers' total blockage of the Syrian coast; (b) the inadequacy of the Ottoman supply strategy; deficient harvest and inclement weather; (c) diversion of supplies from Syria as a consequence of the Arab revolt; (d) the speculative frenzy of a number of unscrupulous local grain merchants; the callousness of German military official in Syria, and systematic hoarding by the population at large.

In general, beginning with World War I every situation of the Empire got worse every year, as most of the able man being in the front lines. Signing of the Armistice of Mudros by the Ottoman Empire was related with the breakdown of the public support under very bad conditions.

The Turkish authorities seek both historical and political reconciliation with Armenia, but has put forth certain conditions before reconciliation. Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 following the Nagorno-Karabakh War between Armenia and Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan. The borders have remained closed because the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute has not been settled to this day, and also because of a dispute over a matter of history: the death of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in eastern Turkey during the dying days of the Ottoman Empire; whether to label it 'genocide' or not.

The Concerned Scholars and Writers says the Turkish government tries "to sanitize its history now include the funding of chairs in Turkish studies - with strings attached - at American universities".

Every original document of the Tehcir Law is open. The Ottoman Archives were taken over by the Governmental Archives Directorate of the Prime Ministry. According to Turkish authorities, the Ottoman Archives have been researched by many historians. Besides the research made by thousands of historians, these documents were translated into English and published in order to enlighten the public.

Turkish authorities point out that without doing a triangulation, even if the facts were reported correctly, the conclusions drawn can be false. It is also possible to look at secondary sources in the Ottoman Archives of the period such as budget, allocations, decisions/reasons of requests. There are also personal records such as Mehmed Talat Pasha's personal notes. They also point out the general attitude (Sick man of Europe) of the time and how it deforms perceptions. They state that the conclusions reached toward genocide are highly biased.

Some very "central" (most cited) sources are actively questioned on the basis that they do not include a single reference from the Ottoman Archives, mainly occupying forces' sources of the period (British, French) on the basis of their Intelligence (information gathering) issues. There are concerns that these sources may promote propaganda.

Enver Zia Karal (Ankara University), Salahi R. Sonyel (British historian and public activist), Ismail Binark (Director of Ottoman archives, Ankara), Sinasi Orel (director of a much publicized project on declassifying documents on Ottoman Armenians), Kamuran Gurun (former diplomat), Mim Kemal Oke, Justin McCarthy, and others have told that the "Blue Book" (The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916) by James Bryce and Arnold J. Toynbee lacks credibility.

Reverse engineering of activities aimed to provide evidence without covering opposing reasoning, such as "Map of Genocide", contain factual problems according to these historians. In this map, the methodology developed, related to "Centers of Massacre and Deportation" and adding data from three different sources (the data in these sources are also aggregate data), is questionable. This map is used as a source of validation among Western scholars.

They argue that there was a secret arrangement which can be traced through mismatches on orders and distributions of the forced deportations. There are many periphery-to-center transmissions on how to deal with emerging issues, such as allocating more than 10% of the destination population and its consequences to the local economy.

Many references that cite genocidal intent use "The Talat Pasha telegrams, (The Naim-Andonian documents)", which are a series of documents by the Interior Minister Mehmed Talat Pasha, to constitute concrete evidence that the deaths were implemented as a state policy. Pasha was notoriously tied to the "Kill every Armenian man, woman, and child without concern" order in these documents (see Aram Andonian's page for more on this topic). The genocidal intent of Mehmed Talat Pasha and even the correctness of this famous sentence is highly dependent on the authenticity of these documents.

According to the Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, the denial of Armenian genocide is "the most patent example of a state's denial of its past".

To deny the Armenian genocide "is like Holocaust denial," notes Gregory Stanton, vice president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars and president of Genocide Watch.

According to Intelligence Report journal of Southern Poverty Law Center, "revisionist historians who conjure doubt about the Armenian genocide and are paid by the Turkish government provided the politicians with the intellectual cover they needed to claim they were refusing to dictate history rather than caving in to a foreign government's present-day interests".

Colin Tatz, Professor of Macquarie University, considers the nature of Turkish denial industry as "pernicious, outrageous and continued": "Here is a modern state, totally dedicated, at home and abroad, to extraordinary actions to have every hint or mention of an Armenian genocide removed, contradicted, explained, countered, justified, mitigated, rationalised, trivialised and relativised." In their book Criminological Perspectives, E. McLaughlin, J. Muncie and G. Hughes conclude: "If the Turkish government can deny that the Armenian genocide happened; if revisionist historians and neo-Nazis deny that Holocaust took place; if powerful states all around the world today can systematically deny the systematic violations of human rights they are carrying out - then we know that we're in bad shape".

In 1990, psychologist Robert Jay Lifton received a letter from the Turkish Ambassador to the United States, questioning his inclusion of references to the Armenian Genocide in one of his books. The ambassador inadvertently included a draft of a letter, presented by scholar Heath W. Lowry, advising the ambassador on how to prevent mention of the Armenian Genocide in scholarly works. Lowry was later named to the Ataturk chair of Ottoman Studies at Princeton University, which had been endowed with a $750,000 grant from the Republic of Turkey. The incident has been the subject of numerous reports as to ethics in scholarship.

Another source marks: "In order to institutionalize this campaign of denial and try to invest it with an aura of legitimacy, a "think-tank" was established in Ankara in April 2001. Operating under the name "Institute for Armenian Research" as a subsidiary of The Center For Eurasian Studies, with a staff of nine, this new outfit is now proactively engaged in contesting all claims of genocide by organizing a series of conferences, lectures, and interviews, and above all, through the medium of publications, including a quarterly".

Since the 1980s, the Turkish government has supported the establishment of "institutes" affiliated with respected universities, whose apparent purpose is to further research on Turkish history and culture, but which also tend to act in ways that further denial.

The Armenian genocide is a contemporary current issue, given the persistent aggressive denial of the crime by the Turkish government-not withstanding its own judgment in courts martial after the first World War, that its leading ministers had deliberately planned and carried out the annihilation of Armenians, with the participation of many regional administrators.

The government of Turkey has channeled funds into a supposedly objective research institute in the United States, which in turn paid the salary of a historian who served that government in its campaign to discredit scholarship on the Armenian genocide.

Wiesel himself has repeatedly called Turkey's 90-year-old campaign to cover up the Armenian genocide a double killing, since it strives to kill the memory of the original atrocities.

When it comes to the historical reality of the Armenian genocide, there is no “Armenian” or “Turkish” side of the “question,” any more than there is a “Jewish” or a “German” side of the historical reality of the Holocaust: There is a scientific side, and an unscientific side acknowledgment or denial. In the case of the denial of the Armenian genocide, it is even founded on a massive effort of falsification, distortion, cleansing of archives, and direct threats initiated or supported by the Turkish state, making any “dialogue” with Turkish deniers highly problematic.

Philip L. Kohl and Clare Fawcett write that the "Armenian cultural remains in neighboring Turkey are frequently dismissed or referred to as "Ottoman period" monuments", and that the continued denial of the state-sponsored genocide is "related to these practices".

Some countries, including Argentina, Switzerland and Uruguay have adopted laws that punish genocide denial. In October 2006, France passed a bill which if approved by the Senate and president, will make Armenian Genocide denial a crime. The European Union has ratified a law "banning incitement to or denial of genocide" (both the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide).

The first person convicted in a court of law for denying the Armenian genocide is Turkish politician Doğu Perinçek, found guilty of racial discrimination by a Swiss district court in Lausanne in March 2007. Perinçek appealed the verdict. After the court's decision, he said, "I defend my right to freedom of expression." "I have not denied genocide because there was no genocide," he argued. Ferai Tinç, a foreign affairs columnist with Turkey's Hürriyet newspaper, added, "we find these type of articles against freedom of opinion dangerous because we are struggling in our country to achieve freedom of thought." In December 2007, the Swiss Federal Court confirmed the sentence given to Perinçek.

In October, 2008 the Swiss court ruled that three Turks were guilty of racial discrimination after having claimed that the Armenian Genocide was an "international lie." The European representative of the Party of Turkish Workers, Ali Mercan, was sentenced to pay a fine of 4,500 Swiss francs ($3,900), two others were ordered to pay 3,600 Swiss francs.

In November 1993 American historian Bernard Lewis said in an interview that calling the massacres committed by the Turks in 1915 a genocide was just "the Armenian version of this history".In a 1995 civil proceeding a French court censured his remarks as a denial of the Armenian Genocide and fined him one franc, as well as ordering the publication of the judgment at Lewis' cost in Le Monde. The court ruled that while Lewis has the right to his views, they did damage to a third party and that "it is only by hiding elements which go against his thesis that the defendant was able to state that there was no 'serious proof' of the Armenian Genocide; consequently, he failed in his duties of objectivity and prudence by expressing himself without qualification on such a sensitive subject".

The Ankara Chamber of Commerce included DVDs, accusing the Armenian people of slaughtering Turks, with their paid tourism advertisements in the June 6, 2005 edition of the magazine TIME Europe. Time Europe later apologized for allowing the inclusion of the DVDs and published a critical letter signed by five French organizations. The February 12, 2007 edition of Time Europe included a full-page announcement and a DVD of a documentary by French director Laurence Jourdan, with an interview with Yves Ternon.

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