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2007-09-27T02:31:00.000-07:00

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sinema - Vizyon

2007-09-27T02:29:00.001-07:00

Yanlış Zaman Yolcuları

Genç bir yazar olan Mahir (30) yeni kitabı üzerinde çalışmaktadır. Fakat hayatında meydanagelen önemli bir olay onu yazmaktan uzaklaştırır. Hayatı tam bir kabusa dönüşür.

Gösterim tarihi : 21.09.2007
Yönetmen : Aren Perdeci
Senaryo : Aren Perdeci, Canan Cemali
Görüntü yönetmeni : Serkan Güler, Ahmet Sesigürgil
Oyuncular : Murat Onur, Canan Cemali, Sinem Tuncer, Sermet Tezel, Karolin Sarı, İlker Uysaler
Tür : Dram
Yapım yılı : 2007

Çocukluğunun tüm anıları gözünde canlanır; Onu tek başına büyütmüş zarif ama güçlü annesi, sıcak komşuluk ilişkileri, karşı dairede yaşayan evin bakıcısı neşeli matmazel Sona, yazar Sermet Bey ve onun genç ve güzel kızı Aslı.

Mahir daha çocukken kendinden on yaş büyük olan Aslı’ya aşık olmuş, onun tüm gizli oyunlarının içine girmiş ve ona büyük bir tutkuyla bağlanmıştır. Geçmişin o renkli ve neşeli günleri şimdiki hayatının karanlığında Mahir’e bir sığınak olmuş, ilk aşkı Aslı onun için bir saplantıya dönüşmüştür.

Mahir’in bu zor günlerinde karşı evin artık yaşlı bakıcısı Madam Sona bile ona yardım edemez. Fakat yayınevi Mahir’e yeni kitabını bitirmesi için baskı yapmaktadır. Ona bir hafta süre tanırlar. Kitap teslim edilmediği taktirde geçmişinin tüm izlerini taşıyan evine haciz konulacaktır.

Madam Sona bu kısa sürede ona yazmasını hızlandıracak bir sekreter bulmayı önerir. Mahir’in bunu kabul etmekten başka şansı yoktur.

Gelen genç ve güzel sekreterle (Sinem, 20) Mahir çalışmaya başlar. Romanının baş kahramanı bellidir: Aslı. Aslı’nın romandaki sevgilisi de Mahir’den başkası değildir. Mahir bu romanla kendini Aslı’yla yaşıt hayal etmiş ve gerçek hayatında gerçekleştiremediği bu düşü romanında canlandırma fırsatı bulmuştur.

Bu roman geçmişinden izler taşımalıydı. Olaylar artık onun istediği gibi gelişebilir, karakterler onun istediği gibi hareket edebilirdi. Mahir’in romana başlamasıyla biz de bu masalsı yolculuğa yazarla beraber çıkarız. Mahir roman ilerledikçe uzun süredir sadece kendine sakaladığı geçmişini, Aslı’yı Sinem ile paylaşır.

Artık yazarla beraber hem geçmişi hem romanı hem de şimdisi arasında ilginç keşfe çıkarız ta ki Sinem geçmişin karanlık sorularına cevap arayana dek...

sinema - Vizyon

2007-09-27T02:27:00.001-07:00

Meryem Ana: Hz. İsa’nın Doğuşu

İnsanlık tarihinin ne ünlü hikayelerinden biri üzerine sinemasal bir yolculuk olan Meryem Ana ile Hz İsa’nın doğuşu ilk kez büyük ibr prodüksiyon olarak beyazperdeye taşınıyor.

Gösterim tarihi : 21.09.2007
Yönetmen : Catherine Hardwicke
Senaryo : Mike Rich
Görüntü yönetmeni : Elliot Davis
Oyuncular : Keisha Castle-Hughes, Oscar Isaac, Hiam Abbass, Shaun Toub, Ciarán Hinds
Tür : Dram
Yapım yılı : 2006
Süre : 101

New Line Cinema’nın yapımcılığını üstlendiği film; Meryem ve Yusuf’un, mücizevi bir gebeliğin ve tarihin akışını değiştiren İsa’nın doğuşunun hikâyesini konu alıyor. Dokunaklı ve sürükleyici film, genç çiftin Kral Herod’un zoruyla Nasıra’dan Yusuf’un memleketi olan Beytüllahim’e doğru çıktıkları yolculuğunnu anlatıyor. 150 kmlik bu tehlikeli yolculuk sırasında, Meryem’in dokuz aylık hamile olması işlerini daha da zorlaştıracaktır.

Yapımını Temple Hill Production’ın üstlendiği filmde Meryem rolünde Oscar’a aday olmuş genç oyuncu Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whale Rider) Yusuf rolünde Oscar Isaac ve Yahya Peygamber’in annesi Elişa rolünde yine Oscar adayı Shohreh Aghdashloo (House of Sand and Fog) var. Filmin uluslararası kadrosunda yer alan diğer isimler arasında Hiam Abbass (Munich, Paradise Now), Shaun Toub (Crash), Alexander Siddig (Syrianna), Nadim Sawalha (Syrianna), Eriq Ebouaney, Stefan Kalipha, Said Amadis, Stanley Townsend ve Ciarán Hinds (Munich) var.

Catherine Hardwicke’in (Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown) yönettiği filmin senaryosunu Mike Rich (The Rookie, Finding Forrester) kaleme almış. Filmin yapımcıları, Wyck Godfrey (I, Robot) ve Marty Bowen. İdari yapımcıları ise Toby Emmerich, Cale Boyter, Tim Van Rellim, Mike Rich ve Catherine Hardwicke.

sinema - Vizyon

2007-09-27T02:24:00.000-07:00

Katilimi Tanıyorum

New Salem’in sakin kasabası, genç kadınları kaçıran ve öldürmeden önce onlara haftalarca işkence eden hunhar bir seri katille dehşete boğulur.

Gösterim tarihi : 21.09.2007
Yönetmen : Chris Sivertson
Senaryo : Jeff Hammond
Görüntü yönetmeni : John R. Leonetti
Oyuncular : Lindsay Lohan, Julia Ormond, Neal McDonough, Brian Geraghty, Garcelle Beauvais
Tür : Dram, Gerilim
Yapım yılı : 2007
Süre : 105 dakika

New Salem’in sakin kasabası, genç kadınları kaçıran ve öldürmeden önce onlara haftalarca işkence eden hunhar bir seri katille dehşete boğulur.

Yetenekli bir piyanist ve hevesli bir yazar adayı olan Aubrey Fleming, arkadaşlarıyla dışarıda geçirdiği bir akşam sırasında ardında hiç iz bırakmadan kaybolduğunda, katilin son kurbanı olduğu düşünülür. Katilin izini sürmek için toplanan FBI Özel Görevler Birimi zaman ilerledikçe genç kızı bulma konusundaki ümitlerini yitirmeye başlarlar.

Fakat bir gece, bir sürücü, ıssız bir yolun kenarında, üstü başı perişan halde ve ciddi biçimde yaralanmış genç kızın yardım istediğini görür. Kız hemen hastaneye kaldırılır. Aubrey’nin annesi Susan (Julia Ormond) ve babası Daniel (Neal McDonough) ara ara kendine gelen kızlarının başında beklerler. Aubrey nihayet konuşacak duruma geldiğinde, Aubrey Fleming diye birini tanımadığını, kendisinin talihsizlikler yaşayan, Dakota Moss adlı bir striptizci olduğunu iddia ederek herkesi şoke eder.

Aubrey’nin travma sonrası stresi yaşadığına inanan doktorların, anne babanın ve yasal yetkililerin elinden genç kızın hafızasını geri kazanması için dinlenmesini ve terapi görmesini beklemekten başka bir şey gelmez. Fakat genç kız ailesinin banliyödeki evine döndükten sonra da, onların sandığı kişi olmadığında diretir; oysa seri katilin önceki kurbanlarındakilerle aynı türde tuhaf yaralara sahiptir. FBI ajanları, Aubrey’nin bilgisayarında alt kimliği Dakota olan bir kızın hikayesini bulduklarında daha da meraklanırlar.

Dakota, Aubrey’nin tek yumurta ikizi olduğundan şüphelenmeye başlayınca, Susan ona hamileliğinde çekilen ve rahminde tek bir çocuk olduğunu açık bir şekilde gösteren ultrason kayıtlarını izletir. Kafası karışan ve dehşete düşen Dakota, yakaladığı kişiye ağır ağır işkence eden, tehditkar bir siluetle ilgili hayaller görmeye başlar.

Hem kendisi hem de Aubrey için zamanın dolmakta olduğuna ikna olan Dakota, şoke edici bir gerçekle Daniel’la yüzleşir ve ikisi birlikte telaş içinde katilin peşine düşerler.

sinema - Vizyon

2007-09-27T02:20:00.001-07:00

Kaza Kurşunu

Judd Apatow, “Kırk Yıllık Bekar”in elde ettiği büyük başarının ardından bu kez beklenmedik sonuçlar doğuran tek gecelik ilişkiler (one night stand) üzerine bir komediyle karşımıza çıkıyor..

Gösterim tarihi : 21.09.2007
Yönetmen : Judd Apatow
Senaryo : Judd Apatow
Görüntü yönetmeni : Eric Alan Edwards
Oyuncular : Jay Baruchel, Katherine Heigl, Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen
Tür : Komedi / Romantik
Yapım yılı : 2007
Süre : 129

Judd Apatow, 26 milyon dolarlık bütçesiyle dünya sinemalarında 177 milyon dolar hasılat elde ederek 2005 yılının hit komedisine dönüşen “Kırk Yıllık Bekar”in elde ettiği büyük başarının ardından bu kez beklenmedik sonuçlar doğuran tek gecelik ilişkiler (one night stand) üzerine bir komediyle karşımıza çıkıyor.

Apatow’un yeni çalışması “Knocked Up” en iyi hazırlanmış gelecek planlarını bile altüst eden “ebeveynlik” olgusu üzerine kahkaha dolu sımsıcak bir romantik komedi…

“Kırk Yıllık Bekar”daki kadrodan Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd ve Leslie Mann’in kamera karşısına geçtiği “Knocked Up”a “Grey’s Anatomy” ve “Roswell”den tanıdığımız güzel yıldız Katherine Heigl de katıldı.

Allison Scott (Katherine Heigl) hayatını dolu dolu yaşayan 24 yaşında bir magazin gazetecisidir. Ancak aşırı alkollü olduğu bir gece Ben Stone adlı (Seth Rogen) sorumsuz ruhlu bir gençle yaşadığı bir gecelik ilişki istenmeyen hamilelik sonucunu getirince hayatı raydan çıkar. Bebeğini tek başına büyütmek ile babasını daha iyi tanımak ikilemiyle yüz yüze kalan Allison, biraz aptalca gibi gözükse de genç adama bir şans vermeye karar verir.

Hayatını belli bir düzene oturtma arzusu taşımayan çocuk ruhlu bir erkek olan Ben, çocuğunun annesiyle beraber olmak istiyorsa büyük bir karar vermek zorunda olduğunu öğrenir. Ya yoluna aynen devam edecek, ya da aile resminin içerisinde yer alacaktır. Ayrıca, bir gecelik ilişkiden sonra “Sen yoluna ben yoluma” diyerek ve kapıyı çarpıp terk ettiği bir kadınla evlilik yoluna girebilmek hayli zor bir iştir. Birbirleri hakkında daha çok ayrıntı keşfettikçe,hiç de ruh ikizi olmadıkları hatta ayrı dünyaların insanları oldukları gerçeği de acı verici şekilde ortaya çıkacaktır.

Çevrelerinde örnek alabilecekleri tek çift, Allison’un dominant ruhlu kız kardeşi Debbie (Leslie Mann) ile kılıbık eniştesi Pete’dir (Paul Rudd). Bu durum herşeyi daha da karmaşık hale getirir. Bebeği beraber büyütmeyi başarabilecekler midir? Ömür boyu mutlu hayat ortaklığının sırrı nedir? İki kadeh içki eşliğinde tek gecelik ilişki yaşanıp bitmiştir, ama kafa karıştırıcı bir sürü karmaşık sorunun yanıtlarını bulmak dokuz aylık süreyi alacaktır.

"Act A Fool" Uncensored Master P

2007-09-25T03:07:00.004-07:00

2007-09-25T03:07:00.003-07:00

2007-09-25T03:07:00.001-07:00

2007-09-25T03:06:00.001-07:00

videos..

2007-09-25T03:01:00.001-07:00

Nattliv - Swedish hostess THROWS UP on live TV!

2007-09-25T03:00:00.001-07:00

2007-09-25T02:30:00.000-07:00

David Vendetta / Bleeding Heart
David Guetta / Baby When The Light
Hi-Tack / Let's Dance
David Vendetta / Break 4 Love
Bob Sinclar / What I Want
Armand Van Helden / I Want Your Soul
Justin Timberlake / Lovestoned(F.Fem Rmx.)
Martin Solveig / Cabo Parano
Eyerer & Chopstick / Make My Day(Haunting)
Rihanna / Don't Stop The Music
Shapeshifters / New Day
Dave Gahan / Kýngdom
Mauro Picotto / Evribadi
The Chemical Brothers / Salmon Dance
Ida Corr / Let Me Think About It

şu anda hitler bunlarmış..
kimileri dinlenesi.

2007-09-24T12:30:00.000-07:00

Norman Stone: 'There is No Armenian Genocide'
Famous British Historian says he is ready to be prisoned by France
JTW News (Saturday , 21 October 2006)
“The Armenian ‘genocide’ is an imperialist plot.” So said Dogu Perincek, in Marxist mode, and he chose to say it in Switzerland. Switzerland passed a law threatening prison for anyone ‘denying’ that there had been a genocide of the Ottoman Armenians in 1915, and Mr. Perincek was interrogated by the police.

There have been similar events in other countries and now we have the French parliament passing a law that is harsher than the Swiss one – a year’s prison and a heavy fine. This is a ridiculous and contemptible business – bad history and worse politics. It is also financially very grubby indeed. We all know how the American legal system can work: lawyers will agree to work for nothing, in return for a share of the profits at the end of a court case. Court cases are very expensive and it can simply be easier for banks or firms or hospitals to agree to make a payment without any confession of liability, just because fighting the case would be absurdly expensive, and the outcome – given how the American jury system works – unpredictable. A burglar, crawling over a householder’s glass roof, fell through it, was badly wounded, and took the householder to court: result, a million dollars in damages. Class actions by Armenian Diaspora descendants in California shook down the Deutsche Bank over claims dating back to 1915 and collected 17,000,000 dollars; then they attempted the same with a French insurance company. We can be entirely certain that if Turkey ever ‘recognizes the genocide’ then the financial claims will follow.

But if Turkey refuses to admit it, she is in fact on perfectly good ground. The very first thing to be said is that the business of ‘genocide’ has never been proved. The evidence for it is at best indirect and when the British were in occupation of Istanbul they never found any direct evidence or proof at all. They kept some hundred or so prominent Turks in captivity on Malta, hoping to find some sort of evidence against them, and failed. They asked the Americans if they knew anything and were told, no. The result is that the alleged ‘genocide’ has never been subjected to a properly-constituted court of law. The British released their Turks (meanly refusing to pay for their journeys back home from Malta). There is a counter-claim to the effect that this happened because the Nationalist Turks were holding British officers hostage but the fact is that the Law Officers simply said that they did not have the evidence to try their captives.

Diaspora Armenians claim that ‘historians’ accept the genocide case. There is some preposterous organization called ‘association of genocide scholars’ which does indeed endorse the Diaspora line, but who are they and what qualifications do they have? Knowing about Rwanda or Bosnia or even Auschwitz does not qualify them to discuss Anatolia in 1915, and the Ottoman specialists are by no means convinced of the ‘genocide’. There is in fact an ‘A’ team of distinguished historians who do not accept the Diaspora line at all. In France, Gilles Veinstein, historian of Salonica and a formidable scholar, reviewed the evidence in a famous article of 1993 in L’Histoire. Back then the Armenian Diaspora were also jumping up and down about something or other, and Veinstein summed up the arguments for and against, in an admirably fair-minded way. The fact is that there is no proof of ‘genocide’, in the sense that no document ever appeared, indicating that the Armenians were to be exterminated. There is forged evidence. In 1920 some documents were handed to the British by a journalist called Andonian. She claimed that he had been given them by an Ottoman official called Naim. The documents have been published as a book (in English and French) and if you take them at face value they are devastating: here is Talaat Pasha as minister of the Interior telling the governors to exterminate the Armenians, not to forget to exterminate the children in orphanages, but to keep it all secret. But the documents are very obviously a forgery – elementary mistakes as regards dates and signatures. At the time, in 1920, the new Armenian Republic was collapsing. Kazim Karabekir was advancing on Kars (which fell almost without resistance) and the Turkish Nationalists were co-operating with Moscow (in effect there was a bargain: Turkey would abandon Azerbaijan and Russia would abandon Anatolian Armenia). The Armenians were desperate to get the British to intervene and save them, by landing troops at Trabzon. However, the British (and still more the French) had had enough of the problems of Asia Minor and were in the main content to settle with the new Turkey. Andonian’s documents belong in that context. The chief Armenian ‘genocidist,’ V.Dadrian, still passionately defends the authenticity of these documents but the attempt does not do much credit to his scholarship: for instance, to the claim that the paper on which these documents were written came from the French school in Aleppo, he answers that there was a paper shortage (leading the Ottoman governor to ask a French headmaster if he could use some of his school-paper? Not very likely). The Naim-Andonian documents have incidentally never been tested in a court. The British refused to use them and a German court subsequently waved them aside. They have since disappeared – not what you would have expected had they been at all that is the sum total of the evidence as to ‘genocide’. Otherwise you are left with what English courts call ‘circumstantial evidence’ – i.e. a witness testifying that another witness said something to someone. Such evidence does not count. In the past three years Armenian historians have apparently been going round archives ın two dozen countries to find out what they contain – the Danish archives for instance. What they contain is what we knew already – that an awful lot of Armenians were killed or died in the course of a wartime deportation from many parts of Anatolia. Did the Ottoman government intend to exterminate the race, or was it just a deportation that went horribly wrong?

As to this, the experts are divided. A deportation gone wrong is the verdict of many of the best qualified historians – Bernard Lewis, Heath Lowry, Justin McCarthy, Yusuf Halacoglu. Other historians who know the old script and the background believe that it was a premeditated campaign of extermination, and some of these historians are Turkish (Mete Tuncay and Selim Deringil, unless I am taking their names in vain). There is a Turkish historian, Taner Akcam, whose book, based on the war-crimes trials set up in the early period of the British occupation, is obviously scholarly and who accepts the genocide thesis (though he does stress that the process cannot be compared with what happened in Nazi Germany to the Jews). In view of these divisions among scholars it is simply scandalous that the French or any other parliament should decree what the answer is. But it is worse, because the Armenian Diaspora can be extremely vindictive. For instance, Gilles Veinstein, as a reward for his quite dispassionate article, faced a campaign of vilification. He had become a candidate for the College de France, which elects the very best scholars in the country to give seminars. The historians very much welcomed this: he is an extremely serious scholar. But the Armenian Diaspora organized a campaign against him, especially among the mathematicians for some reason. One of them, a Professor Thom, was told that, on the whole, the French historians supported Veinstein and did not like the genocide thesis. His answer: ‘they are all Ottomanists,’ as if that somehow disqualified them. The fact is that the Armenian Diaspora have never taken this affair to a proper court of law. Instead, they try to silence men such as Veinstein. There was an extraordinary episode in American publishing two years ago. A very well-known historian, Gunther Lewy, who was a professor at the University of Massachusetts and author of several books still in print on modern German history, wrote a book on the Armenian massacres on the basis of German documents. The book is valuable because it shows how Dadrian twisted the German evidence. He offered it to his usual publisher, Oxford University Press (New York branch). A report was commissioned from one Papazian – not exactly a celebrity – who identified what he claimed were tremendous inaccuracies: they turn out either not to be inaccuracies, or just little slips of the kind anyone might make. On that basis Lewy’s manuscript was refused on the grounds that he had taken up ‘Turkish denialist discourse’. He found another publisher, the University of Utah Press. And lo and behold the senior Armenian historian in the USA, Richard Hovannisian (University of California) wrote in protest to the President of that University to complain about the publication. Be it said, incidentally, that the last two volumes of Hovannisian’s History of Independent Armenia are a well-written and fair-minded account – in some ways, even a classic of historical writing (the earlier two volumes are not of the same class).

Now, there is something very wrong here. If you believe that you are right, and then you will let evidence speak for itself, and if you face opposition you will simply expect to win the argument one way or the other. Attempts to silence opposition, to boycott lectures by, say, Justin McCarthy, to bully or manipulate foreign politicians – all of that surely argues that the Armenians themselves know their case is very far from being overwhelming. In any case it does nothing whatsoever for Armenia. If you go to eastern Turkey and Kars, look across the border at Armenia. It is very poor, and will continue so if there is no commerce with Turkey. The only obvious industry is the issue of visas for Moscow or the USSR (or for that matter Turkey, where up to 100,000 ex-Soviet Armenians live). The place obviously lives off Diaspora money (and the spread of American fast-food places now means curiously enough that the inhabitants are becoming obese in the manner of some Americans). In Soviet times Armenia had a population approaching three million. Then came independence and the war over Karabagh. The population dwindles and declines every year and is now not much above 1,500,000 – of all absurdities, in other words, independence has caused the Armenians to lose twice as many as vanished in the supposed ‘genocide’ of 1915. There is in other words a sickness at the heart of this whole frankly preposterous affair.

What should Turkey do? If the French law does pass then Turks must be prepared to act, otherwise they risk being landed with enormous bills for compensation. It will take organization. I would volunteer, myself, to provoke some trouble in France: it would be very easy indeed for me to give a public lecture and just to point out what is wrong about the whole thesis of the ‘Armenian genocide’ – I might even just read out Veinstein’s article (or another important one by the then leading German general, Bronsart von Schellendorf). The French government probably would be mad enough to put me in prison for a while (this was done to a well-respected French historian of slavery, whose crime had been to point out that many Africans were involved in the slave trade and that some slaves volunteered for transportation because it saved them from cannibalism). But someone has to make a stand against the ridiculous misuse of parliamentary power and the instructing of historians what they must say about an event nearly a century old in a country two thousand kilometers away with a language that very few people can now read.

---Norman Stone (1941-) is a British historian of modern Europe, especially Central and Eastern Europe. He is the author of ''Europe Transformed, 1878-1919.'' Stone was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Between 1984-1997, he served as professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford. Since 1997 Stone has worked at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey. After 2005, he transferred to Koc University,Istanbul,Turkey and still continues to teach there.
---
20 October 2006

2007-09-24T12:21:00.000-07:00

This article is about the Republic of Turkey. For other uses of "Turkey", see Turkey (disambiguation). See also Turk (disambiguation).
Türkiye Cumhuriyeti
Republic of Turkey

Flag
Emblem
MottoYurtta Sulh, Cihanda SulhPeace at Home, Peace in the World
Anthem İstiklâl MarşıThe Anthem of Independence

Capital
Ankara 39°55'48.00′N, 32°50′E
Largest city
Istanbul
Official languages
Turkish
Demonym
Turkish
Government
Parliamentary republic
-
President
Abdullah Gül
-
Speaker of the Parliament
Köksal Toptan
-
Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Succession
to the Ottoman Empire2
-
War of Independence
May 19, 1919
-
Formation of Parliament
April 23, 1920
-
Declaration of Republic
October 29, 1923
Area
-
Total
783,562 km² (37th)302,535 sq mi
-
Water (%)
1.3
Population
-
2007 estimate
71,158,647 (17th3)
-
2000 census
67,803,927
-
Density
93 /km² (102nd3)240 /sq mi
GDP (PPP)
2007 estimate
-
Total
$708.053 billion (16th)
-
Per capita
$9,628 (69th)
GDP (nominal)
2007 Q1 (January-March) estimate
-
Total
$410.823 billion [1] (17th)
-
Per capita
$5,561[2] (69th)
Gini? (2005)
38 (medium)
HDI (2006)
0.7574 (medium) (92nd4)
Currency
New Turkish Lira5 (TRY)
Time zone
EET (UTC+2)
-
Summer (DST)
EEST (UTC+3)
Internet TLD
.tr
Calling code
+90
2
Treaty of Lausanne (1923).
3
Population and population density rankings based on 2005 figures.
4
UN Nations HDI Report, page 284
5
The New Turkish Lira (Yeni Türk Lirası, YTL) replaced the old Turkish Lira on 1 January 2005.

A graphical timeline is available here:
History of the Republic of 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 southwest Asia and the Balkan region of southeastern Europe. Turkey borders eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest, Greece to the west, Georgia to the northeast, Armenia, Azerbaijan (the Nakhichevan exclave), and Iran to the east, Iraq and Syria to the southeast. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean Sea to the west, and the Black Sea to the north. Turkey also contains the Sea of Marmara, which is used by geographers to mark the border between Europe and Asia, thus making Turkey transcontinental.[3]
The region comprising modern Turkey has overseen the birth of major civilizations such as the Hittite, Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. Because of its strategic location where two continents meet, Turkey's culture has a unique blend of Eastern and Western tradition, often described as a bridge between the two civilizations. A powerful regional presence in the Eurasian landmass with strong cultural and economic influence in the area between the Adriatic Sea in the west and China in the east, Russia in the north and the Middle East in the south, Turkey has come to acquire increasing strategic significance.[4][5]
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 while continuing to foster relations with the Eastern world. It is a founding member of the United Nations,[6] the OECD [7] and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe;[8] a member state of the Council of Europe since 1949[9] and of NATO since 1952.[10] Turkey joined the European Economic Community (today known as the European Union) as an associate member in 1963,[11] the Western European Union as an associate member in 1992,[12] and signed the EU Customs Union agreement in 1995.[13] Since 2005, Turkey has been in full accession negotiations with the European Union.[14] Turkey is also a member of the G-20, which brings together the 20 largest economies of the world.

History

Pre-Turkic History of Anatolia
Main article: History of Anatolia

Portion of the legendary walls of Troy (VII), identified as the site of the Trojan War (ca. 1200 BCE)
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.[17] 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.[18]

The Celsus Library in Ephesus, dating from 135 CE
The first major empire in the area was that of the Hittites, from the 18th through the 13th centuries BCE. Subsequently, the Phrygians, an Indo-European people, achieved ascendancy until their kingdom was destroyed by the Cimmerians in the 7th century BCE.[19] 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 Hellenic periods.
The west coast of Anatolia was meanwhile settled by the Ionians, one of the ancient Greek peoples. The entire area was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire during the 6th and 5th centuries BCE and later fell to Alexander the Great in 334 BCE.[20] 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.[21] In 324 CE, the Roman emperor Constantine I chose Byzantium as 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).[22]

Turks and the Ottoman Empire
Main articles: Turkic migration, History of the Turkish people, Seljuk Empire, and Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire at the height of its power (ca. 1680)
Historically, Turkic people have lived and left their influence throughout many parts of Eurasia. They have consistently maintained a policy of assimilation, by absorbing the different cultures that they conquered into their own culture, and maintaining many of the useful ideas and influences of the conquered cultures. Turkish political history began with the creation of the powerful Hunnic State, which was able to expand its borders from Eastern Turkestan and Central Asia to Central and Western Europe under the command of Attila.[23]
After the Huns, until 1040 a series of states founded by various Turkic tribes rose to prominence and consequently collapsed due to invasions from other Turkic tribes. One group in particular was the House of Seljuk, 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.[24] In the 10th century, the Seljuks migrated from their homelands in Central Asia into the eastern Anatolian regions.

The Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Blue Mosque) is one of the most famous architectural legacies of the Ottoman Empire
Following their victory over the Byzantine Empire in the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Turks permanently settled in Anatolia, giving rise to the Anatolian Seljuk State which developed as a separate branch of the larger Seljuk Empire.[25] During the time of the Seljuk dominance, there were two other prominent Turkish states, the Karahanids and Ghaznavids who became unified under Seljuk rule. 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.[26]
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 powers of eastern Europe in its steady advance through the Balkans and the southern part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.[5] 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.[26]

Republican era
Main articles: History of the Republic of Turkey and Atatürk's reforms

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder and first President of the Republic of Turkey
The occupation of İstanbul and İzmir by the Allies in the aftermath of World War I prompted the establishment of the Turkish national movement.[5] 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.[4] 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 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 Ankara.[5]
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.[5] According to the Law on Family Names, the Turkish parliament presented Mustafa Kemal with the honorific name "Atatürk" (Father of the Turks) in 1934.[4]
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.[6] 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.[27]
After participating with United Nations forces in the Korean War, Turkey joined 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 subsequent Athens-inspired coup, Turkey intervened militarily in 1974. In 1983 the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was established, but was recognised only by Turkey.[28]
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 coup d'états in 1960, 1971, 1980 and a "velvet coup" in 1997.[29] The liberalization of the Turkish economy that began in the 1980s changed the landscape of the country, with successive periods of high growth and crises punctuating the following decades.[30]

Government and politics
Main articles: Politics of Turkey, Constitution of Turkey, and Elections in Turkey
Turkey is a parliamentary representative democracy. Since its foundation as a republic in 1923, Turkey has developed a strong tradition of secularism.[31] 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 seven-year term by the parliament but is not required to be one of its members. 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 28 August 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.[32]

The Grand Chamber of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in Ankara
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.[33][34] In the 2007 general elections, 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 Economy following the financial crisis of 2001;[35] he is currently the president of the United Nations Development Programme).[36]
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.[37] The Constitutional Court can strip the public financing of political parties that it deems anti-secular or separatist, or ban their existence altogether.[38][39]
There are 550 members of parliament who are elected for a five-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, only two parties were able to obtain that right during the elections of 2002.[40] Independent candidates may run; however, they must also win at least 10% of the vote in their circonscription to be elected.[37]

Foreign relations
Main articles: Foreign relations of Turkey and Accession of Turkey to the European Union

Roosevelt, İnönü and Churchill at the Second Cairo Conference in December 1943
In line with its traditional Western orientation, relations with Europe have always been a central part of Turkish foreign policy. Turkey became a member of the Council of Europe in 1949, applied for associate membership of the EEC (predecessor of the EU) 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 full accession negotiations with the EU on October 3, 2005.[14] 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.[41] The European Union remains Turkey's biggest trading partner, and the presence of a well-established Turkish diaspora in Europe has contributed to the development of extensive relations between the two sides over the years.
The other defining aspect of Turkey's foreign relations has been its ties with the United States. Membership of NATO in 1952 ensured close bilateral relations with Washington, based on common threats and interest. Turkey was the bulwark of NATO's southeastern flank throughout the Cold War, directly bordering Warsaw Pact countries and risking nuclear war on its soil during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Although Turkey also supported the United States in the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan after September 11, the Iraq War faced strong domestic opposition in the country. A government motion which would have allowed U.S. troops to attack Iraq from Turkey's southeastern border couldn't reach the absolute majority of 276 votes needed for its adoption in the Turkish Parliament, the final tally being 264 votes for and 250 against.[42] This led to a cooling in relations between the U.S. and Turkey and fears that they may be damaged as a result of the situation in Iraq.[43] Turkey is particularly cautious about an independent Kurdish state arising from a destabilised Iraq; it has previously fought an insurgent war on its own soil, in which an estimated 37,000 people lost their lives, against the PKK (listed as a terrorist organization by a number of states and organisations, including the U.S. and the EU).[44][45] This led the Turkish government to put pressure on the U.S. to clamp down on insurgent training camps in northern Iraq, without much success.[46]
Historically, relations with neighbouring Greece have passed through periods of tension. The long divided island of Cyprus and the disputes over the air and sea boundaries of the Aegean Sea remain the main issues of disagreement between the two neighbours.[47] Throughout the Cyprus conflict, Turkey and Greece supported the island's Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities, respectively. In 1974, Turkey militarily intervened to prevent an annexation of the island to Greece under the then Greek military junta. By 1983, Turkish Cypriots declared their unilateral independence as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, to be recognised only by Turkey. Recently, the Cyprus dispute has become one of the main points of contention in Turkey's accession negotiations with the EU, since Turkey refuses to recognise the Republic of Cyprus, an EU member, as the sole authority on the island; and is refusing to open its ports to Greek Cypriot traffic.[48] Nonetheless, following the consecutive earthquakes of 1999 in Turkey and Greece, and the prompt response of aid and rescue teams from both sides, the two nations have entered a much more positive period in their relations, with Greece supporting Turkey's candidacy to enter the European Union at the Helsinki Summit in December 1999.[49]
Since the end of the Cold War, Turkey has been actively building relations with former communist countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, leading to many reciprocal investments and migratory currents between these states and Turkey.[50] Turkish industrial conglomerates have obtained a considerably large market share in these countries' consumer electronics, retail, food, beverage and construction sectors. Turkey was also one of the first countries in the world to recognize neighbouring Armenia's independence in 1991, but relations between the two states soured following the Armenian occupation of the western provinces of Azerbaijan; particularly the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent territories close to the Armenian-Azeri border.[51] Azerbaijan is a Turkic-speaking neighbour and ally of Turkey. Another serious issue surrounds the events of 1915–17, when actions by the Ottoman Young Turks led to the forced mass evacuation and related deaths of an estimated 300,000 (according to Ottoman archives) to 600,000[52] (according to Arnold J. Toynbee, an intelligence officer of the British Foreign Office during World War I), and up to more than 1,000,000 (according to Armenian resources) ethnic Armenians in what many scholars and countries recognise as the Armenian Genocide.[53] The Turkish government rejects the notion that these events constituted a genocide, and instead states the deaths, in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, were a result of disease, famine and inter-ethnic strife;[54] particularly citing the massacres committed by the Armenian Dashnak and Henchak rebels backed by the Russian Army in Eastern Anatolia, in which thousands of ethnic Turks and Kurds were killed.[55] In the recent years, however, large numbers of Armenian workers have moved to Turkey, around 40,000 in Istanbul alone, contributing to the build-up of closer relations between the two nations.[56] Turkey has also given top points to Armenia in the Eurovision Song Contest of 2006 and 2007, which is generally regarded as the measure of a large expat community due to televoting.
Though primarily a Western orientated actor in international affairs, Turkey also fostered relations with the Middle East, becoming the only NATO member of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, as well as forging close ties with Israel.[57] Turkey was the first country with a Muslim majority to formally recognize the State of Israel, on March 28, 1949,[58] before Israel was admitted to the United Nations on May 11, 1949.[59] The founders of the State of Israel and prominent Israeli politicians such as David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and Moshe Shertok had all studied in the leading Turkish schools of Istanbul in their youth, namely Galatasaray Lisesi and Istanbul University.
Owing to its secular traditions, Turkey has viewed certain countries in the region with suspicion and this has caused tensions in the past, particularly with its largest neighbour, Iran.[46] Ankara has long suspected Iran's support of Islamist organizations and militant groups in Turkey, which aim to turn the country into an Islamic theocracy, similar to Iran.[60] Nevertheless, the bilateral economic and political relations between the two countries have strongly improved in the recent years. Iran is a major natural gas supplier of Turkey, while Turkish construction companies have undertaken important projects in Iran, such as the new Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran.[61]
Relations with neighbouring Syria have also been tense since the annexation of the Hatay State to Turkey in 1939, which was never recognized by Syria. Hatay Province of Turkey still appears as a part of Syria's territory in some maps published by the Syrian state.[62] The two neighbours came to the brink of war in 1998 when Turkey threatened military action if Syria continued to shelter PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan and his armed militants in Damascus. Tensions eased in October 1998 when Öcalan left Damascus, his long-time safe haven, and Syria pledged to stop harboring the rebels, allowing a significant improvement in both political and economic relations.[63]

Military
Main articles: Turkish Armed Forces and Conscription in Turkey

A KC-135R-CRAG Stratotanker of the Turkish Air Force refueling TAI-built F-16 fighter jets
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.[64]
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.[65][66] Every fit heterosexual male Turkish citizen is required to serve in the military for time periods ranging from three weeks to fifteen months, depending on his education and job location (homosexuals have the right to be exempt, upon their own personal request).[67]
In 1998, Turkey announced a program of modernization worth some US$31 billion over a ten year period in various projects including tanks, fighter jets, helicopters, submarines, warships and assault rifles.[68] 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.[69]

F-247 TCG KemalReis is a SalihReis (MEKO 200TN II-B) class frigate of the Turkish Navy
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.[70][71] 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.[72]
The Turkish military has traditionally held a powerful position in Turkish politics, considering itself the guardian of Turkey's secular democracy[73]. It has several times within the last decades forcibly removed elected governments believed to be straying from the principles of the state as established by Atatürk and enshrined in the constitution. [73]
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.[64] The actual Commander of the armed forces is the Chief of the General Staff General Yaşar Büyükanıt, who succeeded General Hilmi Özkök on August 26, 2006.[74]

Regions, provinces, and districts
Main articles: Regions of Turkey, Provinces of Turkey, Districts of Turkey, and List of cities in Turkey
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 are the provinces of Hatay (capital: Antakya), Kocaeli (capital: İzmit) and Sakarya (capital: Adapazarı). Provinces with the largest populations are İstanbul (+10 million), Ankara (+4 million), İzmir (+3.4 million), Konya (+2.2 million), Bursa (+2.1 million) and Adana (+1.85 million).
The biggest city and the pre-Republican capital İstanbul is the financial, economic and cultural heart of the country.[75] Other important cities include İzmir, Bursa, Adana, Trabzon, Malatya, Gaziantep, Erzurum, Kayseri, İzmit, Konya, Mersin, Eskişehir, Diyarbakır, Antalya and Samsun. An estimated 67% of Turkey's population live in urban centers.[76] In all, 12 cities have populations that exceed 500,000, and 48 cities have more than 100,000 inhabitants.

Ankara
Kırklareli
Edirne
Tekirdağ
Çanakkale
Balıkesir
Bursa
Yalova
İstanbul
Kocaeli
Sakarya
Düzce
Zonguldak
Bolu
Bilecik
Eskişehir
Kütahya
Manisa
İzmir
Aydın
Muğla
Denizli
Burdur
Uşak
Afyon
Isparta
Antalya
Konya
Mersin
Karaman
Aksaray
Kırşehir
Kırıkkale
Çankırı
Karabük
Bartın
Kastamonu
Sinop
Çorum
Yozgat
Nevşehir
Niğde
Adana
Hatay
Osmaniye
K. Maraş
Kayseri
Sivas
Tokat
Amasya
Samsun
Ordu
Giresun
Erzincan
Malatya
Gaziantep
Kilis
Şanlıurfa
Adıyaman
Gümüşhane
Trabzon
Rize
Bayburt
Erzurum
Artvin
Ardahan
Kars
Ağrı
Iğdır
Tunceli
Elâzığ
Diyarbakır
Mardin
Batman
Siirt
Şırnak
Bitlis
Bingöl
Muş
Van
Hakkâri
Major cities:
İstanbul - 9,085,599
Ankara - 3,540,522
İzmir - 2,732,669
Bursa - 1,630,940
Adana - 1,397,853
Konya - 1,294,817
Gaziantep - 1,009,126
Antalya - 936,330
(Population figures are given according to the 2000 census)[77]

Geography and climate
Main articles: Geography of Turkey and Environmental issues in Turkey

Marmaris on the Turkish Riviera
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.[75] Turkey's area, inclusive of lakes, occupies 783,562[78] 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,[75] 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. 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.[79]
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 (16,94 ft).[79][80]
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.[79]

Mt. Ararat is the highest peak in Turkey at 5,165 m (16,946 ft)
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.[81]
Turkey has a Mediterranean temperate climate, with hot, dry summers and mild, wet and cold winters, though conditions can be much harsher in the more arid interior. Mountains close to the coast prevent Mediterranean influences from extending inland, giving the interior of Turkey a continental climate with distinct seasons. The central Anatolian Plateau is much more subject to extremes than coastal areas. 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.[82]

Economy
Main articles: Economy of Turkey and Economic history of Turkey

Levent financial district in Istanbul
The CIA classifies Turkey as a developed country.[83] Turkey is a founding member of the OECD since 1961 and is also a member of the G20 industrial nations which brings together the 20 largest economies of the world.

Forum Bornova in İzmir
For most of its republican history, Turkey has adhered to a quasi-statist approach, with strict government controls over private sector participation, foreign trade, and foreign direct investment. However, during the 1980s, Turkey began a series of reforms, 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.[30] 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),[84] and 2001,[85] resulting in an average of 4% GDP growth per annum between 1981 and 2003.[86] Lack of additional reforms, combined with large and growing public sector deficits and widespread corruption, resulted in high inflation, a weak banking sector and increased macroeconomic volatility.[87]
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. 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.[88]

Esenboğa International Airport in Ankara
The GDP growth rate for 2005 was 7.4%,[89] thus making Turkey one of the fastest growing economies in the world. 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. The agricultural sector accounts for 11.9% of GDP, whereas industrial and service sectors make up 23.7% and 64.5%, respectively.[76] The tourism sector has experienced rapid growth in the last twenty years, and constitutes an important part of the economy. In 2005, there were 24,124,501 visitors to the country, who contributed 18.2 billion USD to Turkey's revenues.[90] Other key sectors of the Turkish economy are construction, automotive industry, electronics and textiles.

Antalya, the tourism capital
In recent years, the chronically high inflation has been brought under control and this has led to the launch of a new currency to cement the acquisition of the economic reforms and erase the vestiges of an unstable economy. On January 1, 2005, the old Turkish Lira was replaced by the New Turkish Lira by dropping off six zeroes (1 YTL= 1,000,000 TL).[91] As a result of continuing economic reforms, inflation has dropped to 8.2% in 2005, and the unemployment rate to 10.3%.[92] With a per capita GDP (Nominal) of 5,062 USD, Turkey ranked 69th in the world in 2005. In 2004, it was estimated that 46.2% of total disposable income was received by the top 20% income earners, whilst the lowest 20% received 6%.[93]

TCDD high speed train
Turkey's main trading partners are the European Union (59% of exports and 52% of imports as of 2005),[94] the United States, Russia and Japan. 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.[95] 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.[94] For 2006, the exports amounted to 85.8 billion USD, representing an increase of 16,8% over 2005.[96]
After years of low levels of foreign direct investment (FDI), Turkey succeeded in attracting 8.5 billion USD in FDI in 2005 and is expected to attract a higher figure in 2006.[97] 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.[88]

Demographics
Main articles: Demographics of Turkey, Turkish people, Immigration to Turkey, Religion in Turkey, and Secularism in Turkey

İstiklal Avenue in Istanbul's cosmopolitan Beyoğlu district
As of 2005, the population of Turkey stood at 72.6 million with a growth rate of 1.5% per annum.[76][92] The Turkish population is relatively young, with 25.5% falling within the 0–15 age bracket.[98] 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.[99]
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%.[100] This low figure is mainly due to prevailing feudal attitudes against women in the Arab- and Kurdish-inhabited southeastern provinces of the country.[101]
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. The majority of the Turkish population are of Turkish ethnicity. Other major ethnic groups include the Kurds, Circassians, Roma, Arabs and the three officially-recognized minorities (per the treaty of Lausanne) of Greeks, Armenians and Jews. There are also small populations of Levantines, mostly of Italian and French descent, in Istanbul and Izmir. The largest non-Turkic ethnicity is the Kurds, a distinct ethnic group traditionally concentrated in the southeast of the country. Minorities other than the three official ones do not have any special group privileges, and while the term "minority" itself remains a sensitive issue in Turkey, it is to be noted that the degree of assimilation within various ethnic groups outside the recognized minorities is high, with the following generations adding to the melting pot of the Turkish main body. Within that main body, certain distinctions based on diverse Turkic origins could be made as well. Reliable data on the exact ethnic repartition of the population is not available, as the Turkish census figures do not include ethnic or racial figures.[102]

Sufi whirling dervishes
Due to a demand for an increased labour force in post-World War II Europe, many Turkish citizens emigrated to Western Europe (particularly West Germany), contributing to the creation of a significant diaspora. Recently, Turkey has also become a destination for numerous immigrants, especially since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the consequent increase of freedom of movement in the region. These immigrants generally migrate from the former Soviet Bloc countries, as well as neighbouring Muslim states, either to settle and work in Turkey or to continue their journey towards the European Union.[103]
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.[102] The public broadcaster TRT broadcasts programmes in local languages and dialects of Arabic, Bosnian, Circassian and Kurdish a few hours a week.[104]

Cafés at the port of İzmir
Nominally, 94.0% of the Turkish population is Muslim,[105] of whom over 75% belong to the Sunni branch of Islam. A sizeable minority, about 20% of the Muslim population, is affiliated with the Shi'a Alevi sect.[106] The mainstream Hanafite school of Sunni Islam is largely organised by the state, through the Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı (Religious Affairs Directorate), which controls all mosques and Muslim clerics. The remainder of the population belongs to other faiths, particularly Christian denominations (Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Syriac Orthodox), Judaism, Yezidism and Atheism.[107]
There is a strong tradition of secularism in Turkey. Even though the state has no official religion nor promotes any, it actively monitors the area between the religions. The constitution recognises 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.[31] Turkey prohibits by law the wearing of religious headcover and theo-political symbolic garments for both genders in government buildings, schools, and universities;[108] the law was upheld by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights as "legitimate" in Leyla Şahin v. Turkey on November 10, 2005.[109]

Culture
Main articles: Culture of Turkey, Arts in Turkey, Sports in Turkey, Turkish literature, and Ottoman architecture

Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature

Pekinel sisters, world-renowned pianist twins

Nazım Hikmet is the most famous Turkish poet abroad and one of the all-time greatest literary figures of the 20th century[110]

Leyla Gencer, known as "La Regina" (The Queen) in the opera world, is one of the greatest sopranos
Turkey has a very diverse culture that is a blend of various elements of the Oğuz Turkic and 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 continues today. This mix is 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.[111][112] 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, 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.[111]
Turkish music and literature form great examples of such a mix of cultural influences. Many schools of music are popular throughout Turkey, from "arabesque" to hip-hop genres, as a result of the interaction between the Ottoman Empire and the Islamic world along with Europe, and thus contributing to a blend of Central Asian Turkic, Islamic and European traditions in modern-day Turkish music.[113] Turkish literature was heavily influenced by Arabic and, especially, Persian literature during most of the Ottoman era, though towards the end of the Ottoman Empire the effect of both Turkish folk and Western literary traditions became increasingly felt. The mix of cultural influences is dramatized, for example, in the form of the "new symbols [of] the clash and interlacing of cultures" enacted in the work of Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature.[114]
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. 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.[115]
The most popular sport in Turkey by far is football, with certain professional and national matches drawing tens of millions of viewers on television.[116] Nevertheless, other sports such as basketball and motorsports (following the inclusion of Istanbul Park on the Formula 1 racing calendar) have also become popular recently. The traditional Turkish national sport has been the Yağlı güreş (Oiled Wrestling) since Ottoman times.[117]