Difference between revisions of "Turkiye"

Revision as of 18:52, July 10, 2007

This article is about the country. For the large gamebird, see Turkey (bird).

Flag of Turkey

Turkey is a state in Asia with a small amount of territory in Europe and is a part of NATO. Its current president is Ahmet Necdet Sezer. It succeeded the Ottoman Empire after its defeat by the Entente powers in the World War I. Since the establishment of the Republic in 1923, Turkey has pursued policies of secularism and Westernization but it refused to cooperate with the U.S.-led forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom ^[1]. After a period of one-party rule, multi-party politics was introduced in the late 1940's but there have been intermittent military coups (1960, 1971, 1980) since then when the military has not liked the direction the government was going. ^[2].

Human-right abuses, especially against Christians remains a problem ^[3] and the frequency of violent attacks on Christian ministers and priests is still high ^{[4] [5]}.

Turkey and the EU

Turkey is currently negotiating membership with the European Union. This has been met with harsh opposition^[6]. Various reasons for this opposition include:

• Serious human rights violations^[7]
• Refusal to admit genocide of Armenia^[8]
• Refusal to recognize Cyprus^[9]
• Only 3% of Turkey is in Europe
• Threat of increasing Islamic fundamentalism^[10]

References