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THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti) was established on October 29, 1923, under the firm control and leadership of Mustafa Kemal, better known as Kemal Atatürk.

most recent president: Demirel had served as prime minister for less than eighteen months when the unexpected death of Özal in April 1993 provided the opportunity for him to succeed to the presidency.

Atatürk's avowed goal was to create from the Anatolian remnant of the Ottoman Empire a new society patterned directly on the societies of Western Europe. In pursuit of this goal, he tolerated only token opposition..Atatürk's "Six Arrows"--secularism, republicanism, etatism (see Glossary), populism, nationalism, and reformism--were incorporated into the constitutions of 1924, 1961, and 1982.

Although the Kemalists have made compromises with traditional forces in Turkish society, they never have abandoned the main tenets of the secularist program.

By the end of the 1950s, the armed forces had assumed a role as guardians, not only of national security, but also of Atatürk's legacy. On three occasions, in 1960, 1971, and 1980, the senior military intervened to safeguard Turkey's political development from forces that the military believed threatened the integrity of the state.

Turkey's economic difficulties resulted from the inherent limitations of import-substitution industrialization and were exacerbated by the deterioration of world economic conditions that followed the 1973 oil crisis. By the late 1970s, at least one-quarter of the work force was unemployed, the annual inflation rate exceeded 100 percent, and shortages of foreign exchange reduced imports of essential commodities, causing widespread reductions in industrial production.

The Özal government did not dismiss the idea of expanding political and economic ties with other Islamic countries, and actually did cultivate relations with Iran and Iraq. These two neighbors were at war with each other from 1980 to 1988, and Turkey was able to reap economic dividends by remaining strictly neutral with respect to that conflict. Nevertheless, the government continued to believe that Turkey's national interests would be served best by strengthening ties to Western Europe.

By the mid-1990s, the continuing impact of Atatürk and his precepts in shaping the form and nature of Turkish society were being challenged by Turkey's diverse ethnic, religious, and social groups.

The restoration of civilian rule and the general improvement in the overall economy failed to resolve outstanding social issues, which have continued to bedevil Turkey's leadership. Although the government tends to play down the diversity of the population, the country's inhabitants in fact form a mosaic of diverse religious and ethnic groups. Most of the country's citizens continue to accept as true Turks only Sunni (see Glossary) Muslims whose native language is Turkish--effectively excluding other religious and ethnic groups such as the Alevi Muslims and Kurds, who together comprise at least 20 percent of the population.

The government's troubled relations with its Kurdish minority reveal the limits of social integration. Beginning in 1984, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (Partiya Karkere Kurdistan--PKK) launched guerrilla attacks on government personnel and installations in the predominantly Kurdish-populated provinces of southeastern Turkey. The PKK's announced objective was the establishment of a separate state of Kurdistan. PKK guerrillas have evoked some sympathy among Kurds in the southeast, a region characterized by endemic poverty, lack of jobs, inadequate schools and health care facilities, and severe underdevelopment of basic infrastructure such as electricity, piped water, and sewerage systems.

the armed forces have been unable to maintain order in the region, despite the deployment of large military and paramilitary forces, and the southeastern provinces remain under de facto martial law.

By 1995 more than 220,000 soldiers, in addition to 50,000 gendarmerie and other security forces, were stationed in the southeast. Nevertheless, the progressive intensification of the military offensive against the PKK failed to repress the PKK's ability to mount deadly assaults.

The military campaign provoked criticism from Kurdish and Turkish politicians, and in response the military resurrected the Prevention of Terrorism Law, which criminalized any activity--including speech--that threatened the integrity of the state. This law was used in 1994 and 1995 to arrest journalists and elected members of the National Assembly, who were tried in special state security courts that are under the jurisdiction of the military.

Government: Democratic, secular, and parliamentary, according to provisions of 1982 constitution. Divided into legislative, executive, and judicial establishments, with legislative power vested in unicameral National Assembly consisting of 450 deputies elected every five years. Executive authority greater than under 1961 constitution.

Judicial System: Independent of other state organs; autonomy protected by High Council of Judges and Public Prosecutors. Higher courts include Constitutional Court, Council of State, Court of Jurisdictional Dispute, Court of Cassation, and Military Court of Cassation. For purpose of civil and criminal justice, Court of Cassation serves as supreme court.

Administrative System: In 1995 centralized administrative system of seventy-six provinces, divided into districts, and subdistricts. Provinces headed by governors appointed by executive branch and responsible to central administration.

Politics: True Path (Dogru Yol Partisi--DYP) ruling coalition with Social Democratic Populist Party (Sosyal Demokrat Halkçi Parti--SHP) collapsed in September 1995 after SHP deputies voted to join new Republican People's Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi--CHP). New government of DYP-CHP formed in October 1995 to serve in a caretaker capacity prior to parliamentary elections on December 24. Other parties are Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi--ANAP), Welfare Party (Refah Partisi--RP), and Democratic Left (Demokratik Sol Partisi--DSP).

International Affairs: Allied with West through North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Tensions with NATO allies followed 1980 military takeover but reduced after 1983. Continued conflict with Greece over Cyprus and control of Aegean waters.

Military Equipment (1995): Heavy dependence on United States and other Western allies for armored fighting vehicles, artillery, aircraft, missiles, and fighting ships. Modernization programs underway stressing improved antitank and air defense capability. New effort to meet needs through domestic manufacture, including F-16 fighter airplanes on coproduction basis, artillery, tank upgrades, communication and navigation equipment, frigates, and submarines.

Military Budget: About TL93,453 billion (US$4.6 billion) plus US$3 billion for the gendarmerie in 1994. Defense expenditures estimated to be 9.4 percent of GNP in 1994. Turkey's defense expenditures per capita lowest among NATO countries.

Foreign Military Treaties: Member of NATO since 1952.

Special police units fight drug traffic and terrorism and support gendarmerie and army operations against Kurdish insurgents. National Intelligence Organization primary body concerned with intelligence on subversive activity.

Turkey's most famous novelist, Yashar Kamal

Seljuk Rum survived in the late thirteenth century as a vassal state of the Mongols, who had already subjugated the Great Seljuk sultanate at Baghdad. Mongol influence in the region had disappeared by the 1330s, leaving behind gazi amirates competing for supremacy. From the chaotic conditions that prevailed throughout the Middle East, however, a new power emerged in Anatolia--the Ottoman Turks.

Osman I (r. ca. 1284-1324), founder of the Osmanli Dynasty--better known in the West as the Ottomans. This dynasty was to endure for six centuries through the reigns of thirty-six sultans

On becoming sultan in 1444, Mehmet II (r. 1444-46, 1451-81) immediately set out to conquer the city. The military campaigning season of 1453 commenced with the fifty-day siege of Constantinople, during which Mehmet II brought warships overland on greased runners into the Bosporus inlet known as the Golden Horn to bypass the chain barrage and fortresses that had blocked the entrance to Constantinople's harbor. On May 29, the Turks fought their way through the gates of the city and brought the siege to a successful conclusion.

Selim I's son, Süleyman I (r. 1520-66), was called the "lawgiver" (kanuni ) by his Muslim subjects because of a new codification of seriat undertaken during his reign. In Europe, however, he was known as Süleyman the Magnificent, a recognition of his prowess by those who had most to fear from it. Belgrade fell to Süleyman in 1521, and in 1522 he compelled the Knights of Saint John to abandon Rhodes. In 1526 the Ottoman victory at the Battle of Mohács led to the taking of Buda on the Danube. Vienna was besieged unsuccessfully during the campaign season of 1529. North Africa up to the Moroccan frontier was brought under Ottoman suzerainty in the 1520s and 1530s, and governors named by the sultan were installed in Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. In 1534 Kurdistan and Mesopotamia were taken from Persia. The latter conquest gave the Ottomans an outlet to the Persian Gulf, where they were soon engaged in a naval war with the Portuguese.

The Ottomans were slow to recognize the shift in the military balance to Europe and the reasons for it. They also increasingly permitted European commerce to penetrate the barriers built to protect imperial autarky. Some native craft industries were destroyed by the influx of European goods, and, in general, the balance of trade shifted to the disadvantage of the empire, making it in time an indebted client of European producers.

The Ottoman Empire had a dual economy in the nineteenth century consisting of a large subsistence sector and a small colonial-style commercial sector linked to European markets and controlled by foreign interests. The empire's first railroads, for example, were built by foreign investors to bring the cash crops of Anatolia's coastal valleys--tobacco, grapes, and other fruit--to Smyrna (Izmir) for processing and export. The cost of maintaining a modern army without a thorough reform of economic institutions caused expenditures to be made in excess of tax revenues. Heavy borrowing from foreign banks in the 1870s to reinforce the treasury and the undertaking of new loans to pay the interest on older ones created a financial crisis that in 1881 obliged the Porte to surrender administration of the Ottoman debt to a commission representing foreign investors. The debt commission collected public revenues and transferred the receipts directly to creditors in Europe.

In Mesopotamia the Ottoman army defeated a British expeditionary force that had marched on Baghdad from a base established at Basra in 1915. The British mounted a new offensive in 1917, taking Baghdad and driving Ottoman forces out of Mesopotamia. In eastern Anatolia, Russian armies won a series of battles that carried their control west to Erzincan by July 1916, although Atatürk, who was then given command of the eastern front, led a counteroffensive that checked the Russian advance. Russia left the war after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. The new Russian government concluded the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers in March 1918, under which the Ottoman Empire regained its eastern provinces.

Six Arrows" of Kemalism: republicanism, nationalism, populism, reformism, etatism (statism), and secularism.

last country to declare war on hitler: Turkey broke diplomatic relations with Adolf Hitler's government in August 1944, and, in February 1945, declared war on Germany, a necessary precondition for participation in the Conference on International Organization, held in San Francisco in April 1945, from which the United Nations (UN) emerged. Turkey thereby became one of the fifty-one original members of the world organization.

Turkey's links to the United States grew rapidly in the aftermath of World War II. Turkey took a resolutely pro-Western stance as the Cold War developed in the late 1940s and, in 1950, sent an infantry brigade to the Korean Peninsula to serve under UN command there. The pattern of close bilateral ties with the United States that characterized postwar Turkish foreign relations began to take shape with an agreement signed in Ankara in September 1947 implementing a policy formulated by President Harry S Truman the previous March. Known as the Truman Doctrine, the president's policy declaration spelled out United States intentions to guarantee the security of Turkey and Greece. Truman won approval from the United States Congress for an initial appropriation of US$400 million to aid both countries. Congress also authorized United States civilian and military personnel to assist in economic reconstruction and development and to provide military training. Turkey subsequently participated in the United States-sponsored European Recovery Program (Marshall Plan). Turkey also was admitted to membership in the Council of Europe and in 1959 applied for association with the European Community (EC), later called the European Union (EU--see Glossary). Set aside after the 1960 coup, Turkey's application finally was approved in 1964.

Turkey was admitted to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO--see Glossary) in 1952, and in 1955 joined with Britain, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan in the Baghdad Pact, a multilateral defense agreement that became the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) after the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958.

In 1980 United States military assistance to Turkey amounted to US$250 million, and economic aid to about US$200 million. The United States also joined other countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in pledging emergency credits in a bid to halt Turkey's slide into bankruptcy during the financial crisis of the late 1970s.

In the summer of 1990, the crisis in the Persian Gulf resulting from Iraq's invasion of Kuwait gave Özal the opportunity to regain the political initiative. The Turkish government moved quickly to support UN sanctions against Iraq, on August 7 stopping the flow of oil through the pipeline from Iraq to Turkey's Mediterranean coast.

Although most adult Kurds are Sunni Muslims, perhaps as much as one-third of the total Kurdish population in Turkey belongs to a Shia Muslim sect known as Alevi (see Glossary). In addition to the Kurdish Alevi, many of the nation's estimated 700,000 to 1 million Arabs are Alevi. The Alevi Arabs--most of whom live in or near Hatay Province--also are known as Nusayri and maintain discreet ties with the Alawi (also seen as Alawites) of neighboring Syria. A significant number of Alevi are ethnic Turks.

The result of Atatürk's reforms was the creation of two cultures: a secularized and Westernized elite culture and a mass culture based on traditional religious values.

Turkey is one of the world's more active earthquake and volcano regions.

As Alevi, the Arabs of Turkey believe they are subjected to state-condoned discrimination. Fear of persecution actually prompted several thousand Arab Alevi to seek refuge in Syria following Hatay's incorporation into Turkey. The kinship relations established as a result of the 1939-40 emigration have been continually reinforced by marriages and the practice of sending Arab youths from Hatay to colleges in Syria. Since the mid-1960s, the Syrian government has tended to encourage educated Alevi to resettle in Syria, especially if they seem likely to join the ruling Baath Party.

The first historical references to the Turks appear in Chinese records dating around 200 B.C. These records refer to tribes called the Hsiung-nu (an early form of the Western term Hun ), who lived in an area bounded by the Altai Mountains, Lake Baykal, and the northern edge of the Gobi Desert, and who are believed to have been the ancestors of the Turks (see fig. 3). Specific references in Chinese sources in the sixth century A.D. identify the tribal kingdom called Tu-Küe located on the Orkhon River south of Lake Baykal. The khans (chiefs) of this tribe accepted the nominal suzerainty of the Tang Dynasty. The earliest known example of writing in a Turkic language was found in that area and has been dated around A.D. 730.

Armenians and Kurds

The Armenians took refuge in the Lake Van region in the seventh century B.C., apparently in reaction to Cimmerian raids. Their country was described by Xenophon around 400 B.C. as a tributary of Persia. By the first century B.C., a united Armenian kingdom that stretched from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea had been established as a client of the Roman Empire to buffer the frontier with Persia.

Xenophon also recorded the presence of the Kurds. Contemporary linguistic evidence has challenged the previously held view that the Kurds are descendants of the Medes, although many Kurds still accept this explanation of their origin. Kurdish people migrated from the Eurasian steppes in the second millennium B.C. and joined indigenous inhabitants living in the region.

The performance of Turkey's economy was mixed during 1995. The monetary policies of the Çiller government included strict controls over public-sector expenditures, which contributed to an easing of the financial crisis that had developed in early 1994. Although exports rose steadily during the first two quarters of the year, imports increased at a faster rate, and this surge in imports added to the country's severe balance of payments deficit. In addition, inflation continued to be a major economic problem, totalling 78.9 percent for all of 1995. Several years of high inflation rates and low wage increases had aggravated employer-employee relations. The strain was reflected in the large number of strikes during 1995, including a crippling two-month-long strike by more than 350,000 public-sector workers in the autumn. Moreover, the privatization of state-owned enterprises--the principal feature of the Çiller administration's structural adjustment program--made little progress in 1995. Within the National Assembly, a majority of deputies opposed the sale of major public factories for ideological (the relevant industries were strategic) or political (fear that sales would lead to increased unemployment) reasons.

March 18, 1996

Paul M. Pitman, III, and Eric Hooglund