REPUBLIC OF TURKEY Official name: Turkiye Cumhuriyeti (Republic of Turkey) Location: Eastern Europe, West Asia International organisations: The Council of Europe, The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, The Organisation of Islamic Conference, The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, The United Nations, The World Trade Organisation.

Borders: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Syria
Coastline: Aegean Sea, Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea
Land area: 780,580 Km2
Population: 67,300,000
Ethnicity: Turkish 80%, Kurdish 20%. There are small Armenian and Greek minorities
Languages: Turkish is the official language and its use is mandatory in all public affairs. Kurdish is widely spoken in the south-east but not recognised.
Religion: Turkey is a secular state, but the great majority of the population are at least nominally Sunni Moslems.
Form of government: Parliamentary democratic republic. Turkey is divided into 81 provinces.

Capital: Ankara
Constitution: The Constitution of the Republic of Turkey dates from 7 November 1982.
Head of state: The President, elected by the National Assembly for a five-year term. The President's functions are largely ceremonial. President Ahmed Necdet Sezer was elected in May 2000.
Head of government: The Prime Minister, appointed by the President. The Prime Minister is usually the leader of the majority party in the legislature and is accountable to it.
Legislature: The Great National Assembly of Turkey (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi) is a unicameral legislature with 550 members, elected for five-year terms by proportional representation from each of the states.
Electoral authority: Turkish elections are conducted by the government.
Freedom House rating: Political Rights 4, Civil Liberties 4

Political history

Kemal Ataturk

The Ottoman Empire, which was centered on the Turkish-speaking lands of Anatolia but was not a Turkish national state, collapsed in the wake of the First World War. The empire had made fitful efforts to reform itself, and had held elections in the decade before the war, but had not established responsible government. In 1923 Mustapha Kemal (later Kemal Ataturk) proclaimed the Turkish Republic and became its president. Ataturk ran an authoritarian regime until his death in 1938. After the Second World War President Ismet Inonu, who succeeded Ataturk, allowed a multi-party system and free elections. In 1954 The Kemalist Republican People's Party was defeated in free elections. But the Democratic Party government of Adnan Menderes was overthrown by the army in 1960. Democratic government was restored in 1961, but increasingly bitter political conflict and the corrupt behaviour of many politicians led to another army coup in 1980. The army's tendency to see itself as the guardian of Kemalist virtue is a continuing problem in Turkish politics.

The military handed back power to a civilian government in 1989, but Turkish government has remained essentially authoritarian, intolerant of dissent and repressive towards religious and ethnic minorities (especially the Kurds).

Since the 1980s Turkey's traditional Kemalist party, the Republican People's Party, has lost its dominant position in national politics. It was overtaken by a number of conservative parties, such as the True Path Party, the Motherland Party and the Nationalist Party. The left wing of the RPP broke away to form the Democratic Left Party.

At the 2002 elections all these parties were wiped out, and replaced by an Islamist party, the Justice and Development Party, which won a huge majority. The RPP was the only opposition party to win seats. The Kurdish party, the Democratic People's Party, failed to gain representation.

The new Islamist government poses a challenge to Turkey's tradition of authoritarian secular nationalism, of which the army is the self-appointed guardian. Turkey also faces divisive issues such as the situation in Cyprus, the future of Iraq and membership of the European Union.

Humans Rights Watch's 2002 Report on Turkey noted that:

"[In 2002] pressure for Turkey to meet its political and human rights criteria for membership began to produce substantial results. In February and August, the government passed legislative packages that provided improved access to legal counsel for police detainees, abolished the death penalty, and permitted broadcasting and education in minority languages. [But] the legislative changes left serious constraints on free expression unaddressed, however, and torture continued to be widespread.

"Parliament tentatively reformed laws inhibiting freedom of expression, but courts still imprisoned those who insulted state institutions or addressed sensitive questions about Kurdish minority rights or the role of the military or religion in politics. Restrictions on other aspects of free expression remained. Governors throughout the country continued to ban plays, films, and exhibitions, while courts confiscated many newspapers and scores of books for "separatism." Torture and ill-treatment remained widespread in police stations and gendarmeries, facilitated by the continued practice of holding detainees without access to legal counsel."