Turkey Information Guide & Facts

Area: Approx 780,000 sq km (483,000 sq mi)
Population: 67.8m (according to 1999 census)
Capital city: Ankara
People: Turks (85%), Kurds (12%), other Islamic Peoples, Armenians, Jews
Language: Turkish, Kurdish
Religion: Muslim
Currency: Turkish Lira (TL)

GEOGRAPHY

Location: South eastern Europe or south western Asia (that part west of the Bosporus is usually included with Europe), bordering the Black Sea, between Bulgaria and Georgia, and bordering the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, between Greece and Syria
Geographic coordinates: 39 00 N, 35 00 E
Area: total: 780,580 sq km, land: 770,760 sq km, water: 9,820 sq km
Land boundaries: total: 2,627 km, border countries: Armenia 268 km, Azerbaijan 9 km, Bulgaria 240 km, Georgia 252 km, Greece 206 km, Iran 499 km, Iraq 331 km, Syria 822 km
Coastline: 7,200 km
Climate: temperate; hot, dry summers with mild, wet winters; harsher in interior
Terrain: mostly mountains; narrow coastal plain; high central plateau (Anatolia)
Elevation extremes: lowest point: Mediterranean Sea 0 m, highest point: Mount Ararat 5,166m
Natural resources: antimony, coal, chromium, mercury, copper, borate, sulfur, iron ore
Land use: arable land: 32%, permanent crops: 4%, permanent pastures: 16%, forests and woodland: 26%, other: 22% (1993 est.)
Irrigated land: 36,740 sq km (1993 est.)
Natural hazards: very severe earthquakes, especially in northern Turkey.

HISTORY

Recent History

The Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923. Its first President, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, made it his aim to transform Turkey into a modern, secular state, which could compare with Western nations in terms of military and economic strength. The Turkish military has since tended to regard itself as the guardian of Ataturk's legacy, even to the point of intervening directly to restore political stability in 1960, 1971 and most recently in 1980.

In September 1980 the Turkish military took power following a breakdown of law and order under a succession of weak and divided coalition governments during the 1970s. Under martial law tens of thousands were detained, many convicted of terrorist offences, some executed and thousands imprisoned. General Evren, Chief of the General Staff, became Head of State and President of the National Security Council (NSC - an advisory body, consisting of the President, Prime Minister, other key ministers, and senior members of the military). He set, and adhered rigidly to, a timetable for the restoration of an elected government. In 1982 a new Constitution was adopted. Turgut Özal replaced Evren as President in 1989. He modernised the Turkish economy and raised Turkey's international standing until his death in 1993. In May 1993 Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel was elected President. Mrs Tansu Çiller, previously Economics Minister, was elected to replace Demirel as Chairman of the True Path Party (DYP) in early June 1993 and thus became Turkey's first female Prime Minister.

In June 1996 Necmettin Erbakan became Prime Minister when his Refah party formed a coalition with the DYP. However, Refah's Islamist ideology led to friction with the NSC, which feared that the new government might take steps to undermine Turkey's secular state and western orientation. Largely as a result of sustained pressure from the NSC, Erbakan resigned in June 1997. The Democratic Left Party (DSP), led by Bulent Ecevit, benefited most from the political upheaval that followed, forming coalitions first with the ANAP alone, then with both the ANAP and DYP.

The general and local elections in Turkey of 18 April 1999 brought to power a coalition of the DSP, ANAP and Devlet Bahceli's Nationalist Action Party (MHP), with Bulent Ecevit remaining as Prime Minister. Ahmet Necdet Sezer, former Head of Turkey's Constitutional Court, was elected President of Turkey on 5 May 2000; he was inaugurated on 16 May.

The new government began a programme of constitutional and economic reforms in its first year in office, particularly those needed to take Turkey's EU candidacy forward. Concerns about the government's ability to implement these reforms, in addition to a corruption scandal, led to a period of economic crisis in February 2001. A run on the currency resulted in a depreciation of the Turkish lira of 40%, a steep increase in interest rates, price rises and, as the economy began to retract, major job losses. Other casualties included the year-long anti-inflationary programme, backed by $11bn in IMF support and the unprecedented economic stability that had been credited to Ecevit's government.

The Prime Minister responded by appointing Kemal Dervis, a former World Bank vice president, as Economy Minister in March 2001. Dr Dervis spent his first two months putting in place a viable economic strategy, based upon measures to prevent a resurgence of inflation and to reform the banking system. In doing so he secured new loans totalling $10bn from the IMF and the World Bank in May 2001, to fund a series of economic and structural reforms, as well as restoring macroeconomic stability and providing support to the budget. The IMF approved a further loan of $9bn in February 2002 and undertook to provide another $5bn, paid in regular instalments throughout the year, provided that the Turkish Government complied with their programme of economic reform.

Signs of tension within the coalition continued however, including disagreements over the IMF's conditions (such as privatisation of public companies) and the pace of political reform (e.g. abolition of the death penalty). Ecevit's failure to resign after his health began to deteriorate in May 2002 led to the resignations of more than sixty DSP deputies and several Ministers, including Deputy Prime Minister Ozkan, and Cem, the Foreign Minister. Cem and Ozkan formed their own centre-left party, New Turkey (YTP), which almost all of the ex-DSP deputies joined. In August Dervis resigned, with the declared intention of forming a broad, centre-left, liberal movement. As a base for this he chose the CHP, a long-established centre-left party.

These resignations, combined with growing pressure from both opposition parties and DSP's coalition partners, led to the Turkish Parliament's decision to hold elections on 3 November 2002, eighteen months before they were due. One of the last acts of the current Parliament was to approve a significant package of political reforms (see 'Turkey's Relations with the EU', below).