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Turkey Facts: [Introduction - Home Page] Turkish Cities: [Istanbul] [Ankara] Turkey Pictures: [Gallery 1] [Gallery 2] [Gallery 3]
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Turkey (Turkie)VII. History The first major civilization in Anatolia, or Asia Minor, was that of the Hittites, about 1900 to 1200 bc, which originated in the central plateau. It was conquered by invaders known as the Sea Peoples, who swept over Asia Minor and Syria shortly after 1200 bc. The destruction of the western Anatolian city of Troy, an event celebrated in ancient Greek legends, probably occurred during these invasions. One group of the Sea Peoples, the Phrygians, established a kingdom that became the dominant Anatolian power in the 9th and 8th centuries bc (Phrygia). During this period the Greeks founded Miletus, Ephesus, and Priene and a number of other cities in Ionia, an area along the Aegean coast. About 700 bc the Phrygian kingdom was overrun and destroyed by the Cimmerians, a nomadic people who thereafter lived in western Asia Minor. In the 7th century bc the Lydians also appeared near the Aegean coast, where they founded a kingdom, the capital of which was Sardis. It was overthrown by the Persians under Cyrus the Great in 546 bc. From the mid-6th century to 333 bc most of Asia Minor, including Anatolia, belonged to the Persian Empire, although the Greek cities frequently enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy. In the 4th century bc Persian power declined, and after 333 bc it was supplanted by the Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great. In the 2nd and 1st centuries bc, Asia Minor was gradually conquered by the Romans. After the division of the Roman Empire in the 4th century ad, Asia Minor became part of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine Empire, the capital of which was Constantinople (present-day İstanbul), or Byzantium, located on the European side of the Bosporus, just across from the west coast of Anatolia. During the 11th century Asia Minor was invaded by nomadic Seljuk Turks. In 1071 they routed the Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert; during the 12th century they ravaged much of eastern and central Anatolia. Although at this time the primary objective of the Seljuks was not to attack the Byzantines but to eliminate the threat of heterodox Shia Islam posed by the Fatimids of Egypt, some members of the Seljuk dynasty saw an opportunity to win a realm of their own. They established the sultanate of Rūm (with its capital at Konya), which ruled central Anatolia in the 12th and 13th centuries. Most of the nomads who had made the initial Seljuk victories possible were soon pushed to the west of Anatolia, where frontier colonies were maintained against the last Byzantine defenses. Although the sultanate of Rūm imitated the Seljuk Empire of Baghdād, the presence within its boundaries of large numbers of Christians and its superimposition of Islam on top of a living Christian tradition produced a milieu considerably different from that of other Islamic states. It provided the basis for the unique Ottoman systems of government and society that began to emerge in the 14th century. In the mid-13th century the Seljuks of Baghdād and Konya were overwhelmed by the Mongol invasion led by Hulagu, a descendant of Genghis Khan, that culminated in the capture and sack of Baghdād in 1258. In Anatolia, the Turkish nomads used the resulting anarchy to form a series of principalities, nominally under the suzerainty of Rūm, which in turn was dominated by the Mongols. These principalities maintained themselves through their raids against one another and against the last Byzantine nobles, who held out in western Anatolia. A. Rise of the Ottomans The Ottomans emerged in history as leaders of those Turks who fought the Byzantines in northwestern Anatolia. The location enabled Osman, founder of the Ottoman dynasty, to take the fullest advantage of Byzantine weakness and secure booty by raids into Christian territory. This situation lured into his service thousands of Turkish nomads and also many Arabs and Iranians fleeing from the Mongols. Osman’s conquests in Anatolia were crowned with the capture in 1326 of the provincial capital Bursa by his son Orhan, which gave the Ottomans control over the Byzantine administrative, financial, and military systems in the area. Thus began the Ottoman tradition to expand by force only at the expense of the declining Christian states to the west, but not against the Turkmen principalities to the east. The peaceful acquisition of Turkmen lands by purchase, marriage, and the sowing of dissension within the ruling dynasties was, however, acceptable, and the Ottomans thus took over large territories in western Anatolia. A1. European Raids Ottoman expansion into Europe began late in Orhan’s reign. Ottoman soldiers were hired as mercenaries by leading Byzantines, including John VI Cantacuzene, who was thus able to secure himself the Byzantine throne in 1347. In return, Ottoman soldiers were allowed to raid Byzantine territories in Thrace and Macedonia, and the emperor’s daughter was given to Orhan in marriage. The Ottoman raiders soon began to camp in the Gallipoli (Gelibolu) Peninsula and to mount continuous raids on the remaining Byzantine possessions in Europe. The transformation of the Ottoman principality into a vast empire, covering southeastern Europe, Anatolia, and the Arab world, was accomplished in three major campaigns between the 14th and 16th centuries. The early Ottoman Empire, stretching from the Danube to the Euphrates, was created by Murad I and Bayazid I. Murad concentrated mainly on Europe in a series of campaigns that extended as far as the Danube, culminating in the Battle of Kosovo (1389), in which an allied Serbian, Bosnian, and Bulgarian army was routed. Murad himself was killed, but his son Bayazid completed the victory. During the next decade Bayazid broke with tradition and conquered most of the Anatolian Turkmen principalities, thus bringing the early empire to its peak. A2. Defeat and Restoration Bayazid’s conquest, however, greatly weakened the basic supports of the Ottoman state. The Muslim elements and the Turkish notables, who had helped the Ottomans achieve their victories in Europe, opposed this subjugation of Turks and Muslims. They refused to participate in the campaign into Anatolia, which as a consequence was carried out largely by Christians in Bayazid’s service. At the same time, the emergence of the Ottomans as a major power in Anatolia threatened the rear flanks of Tamerlane, the Turkic conqueror who had recently taken over much of Iran and Central Asia. Tamerlane briefly invaded Anatolia in 1402, defeating and capturing Bayazid, who died a prisoner the following year. Muhammad I, Bayazid’s youngest son, restored the Ottoman Empire by defeating and killing his brothers, one after another, and, from 1402 to 1413, by fighting off Christian and Turkmen vassals in Europe and Anatolia. His son, Murad II, reasserted Ottoman dominion in Europe as far as the Danube by defeating the various Christian princes of Serbia and Bulgaria and replacing them with direct Ottoman administration. This policy was continued during the reign of Muhammad II, who defeated the last remaining Christian princes south of the Danube. His conquests culminated in the capture of Constantinople (present-day İstanbul) in 1453 and the subjugation of Anatolia as far as the Euphrates. Bayazid II ended the policy of conquests in order to consolidate the lands that had been occupied during previous reigns. Unlike him, Selim I used the territorial and administrative base of power left to him to defeat and destroy the Mamluk Empire in 1517 and to conquer Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Arabia, which he achieved in a single campaign, thus incorporating into the Ottoman Empire the heartland of the old Islamic caliphates. Süleyman I the Magnificent completed the Ottoman expansion by moving across the Danube to conquer Hungary and besiege Vienna in 1529. In the east he conquered the remainder of Anatolia and the old Abbasid and Seljuk center in Iraq. B. Ottoman State and Society The Ottoman Empire reached its peak during the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent, and the social, administrative, and governmental institutions that had been evolving since the 14th century were formalized in a series of codes that remained the basis of Ottoman law until the end of the empire. As revealed in these codes, the society was divided into a ruling class of Ottomans and a subject class of rayas, or the sultan’s “protected flock.” The basic attribute of the ruler’s authority was the right to exploit the wealth of the empire. The sultan divided this wealth into administrative and financial units and assigned them to his agents, along with the authority to collect the accruing revenues. These agents were considered slaves of the sultan, but because slaves in Middle Eastern society acquired the social status of their master, they actually constituted the ruling class of Ottoman society. Their authority, however, was limited to functions involved with exploiting the empire’s wealth and with expanding and defending the state organized to accomplish this. To carry out these functions, the ruling class organized itself into four basic institutions: the Imperial Institution, including the Inner, or Palace, Service, which cared for the sultans, and the Outer Service, which made sure that the system worked; the Military Institution, which kept order through various military corps, of which the most important were the Janissaries and the cavalry; the Scribal Institution, which supported the sultan and his ruling class by assessing and collecting taxes that exploited the wealth of the empire; and the Religious, or Cultural, Institution, which gave religious leadership to the sultan’s Muslim subjects and was in charge of education and justice. The ruling class was made up of two rival elements: (1) Muslim Turks, Arabs, and Iranians, who together constituted the Turkish aristocracy that dominated the Ottoman system during the 14th and 15th centuries, and (2) Christian prisoners and slaves, recruited, converted, and educated through the famous devshirme system. Beginning in the mid-16th century, the latter group took over and dominated the ruling class. All other social functions were left to the subject class to carry out as they wished, primarily through religiously oriented communities called millets, and through economic and social guilds. The Jewish, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Gregorian, and Muslim millets, later joined by Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Bulgarian Orthodox millets, were allowed religious and cultural autonomy. C. Decline and Traditional Reform The decline of the Ottoman Empire began late in the reign of Süleyman I and continued until the end of World War I in 1918. Official reaction to this decline came in phases—that of Traditional Reform (1566-1807), when efforts were made to restore the old institutions, and that of Modern Reform (1807-1918), when the old ways were abandoned and new ones, imported from the West, were adopted. C1. Nature of the Decline Until the mid-16th century, the sultans had controlled and used both the old Turkish aristocracy and the devshirme Christian converts and their descendants by carefully balancing and playing them off against each other. During Süleyman’s reign, however, the devshirme achieved control, drove the Turkish aristocracy out of the ruling class, and then began to exploit the state for their own advantage. At the same time, the empire began to suffer from overpopulation, resulting from the peace and security that had been established. A high birth rate eventually resulted in both urban and rural unemployment, due to the limited availability of land and to highly restrictive economic policies enforced by the urban guilds. Without jobs, the oppressed masses formed robber bands that infested town and country alike. With incompetent, dishonest, and inefficient government by the ruling class, lands fell out of cultivation, the empire suffered from endemic famine and disease, and entire districts—sometimes entire provinces—fell under the control of provincial notables. The subject class suffered a good deal but was protected from the worst effects of the anarchy by the millets and guilds, which formed a substratum of society, taking over the functions of government when needed. At the same time, Europe was developing nation-states that were far more powerful than those that had faced the Ottoman Empire in earlier centuries. Ottoman reaction to the decline was tempered for several reasons: First, Europe was so involved in its own affairs that for at least a century it was unaware of the Ottoman situation and made no effort to take advantage of it. Second, most members of the ruling class benefited from the chaos, for it enabled them to retain huge profits for themselves. Finally, the Ottomans in their isolation were unaware of the changes that had made Europe far more powerful than before. They assumed that the Islamic world was still more advanced than Christian Europe. Under these conditions, the ruling class saw no need for change or reform. After a time, however, Europe began to realize the extent of internal Ottoman decay and to take advantage of it. In 1571 the Holy League fleet, led by John of Austria, moved into the eastern Mediterranean and destroyed the Ottoman fleet in the Battle of Lepanto. The victory was counteracted by the building of an entirely new fleet, and the Ottomans resumed their naval control in the Mediterranean for another half century. Nonetheless, the impression began to spread in Europe that the Ottomans were not invincible. War with Austria followed (1593-1606), leading the sultan to recognize the Holy Roman emperor as an equal and to give up his insistence on annual Austrian payments of tribute—a fact that further opened Europe’s eyes to Ottoman decline. C2. Reforms and Losses Only when powerful foreign attacks threatened the empire, on which its privileges and wealth depended, did the ruling class accept some sort of reform. In 1623, Shah Abbas I of Iran conquered Baghdād and eastern Iraq and stirred up a series of Turkmen revolts in eastern Anatolia. In response, Sultan Murad IV restored honesty and efficiency to the ruling class and the army. By ruthlessly executing thousands found guilty of violating Islamic law and tradition, he began the so-called Traditional Reforms. The reforms were successful enough for the Ottoman army to drive the Iranians out of Iraq and to conquer the Caucasus in 1638. Murad’s successor, however, allowed the previous decay to resume. A war with Venice, which culminated in a Venetian naval attack on the Dardanelles, then led to the rise of the Köprülü dynasty of grand viziers, which once again restored the old institutions with the same methods used by Murad IV. Eradication of the decay and restoration of Ottoman power stimulated the last Köprülü grand vizier, Kara Mustafa Pasha, to make a new attempt to conquer Vienna in 1683. After a short siege, however, the Ottoman army completely fell apart, making it possible for a new European Holy League to conquer integral parts of the empire. The losses of Hungary and Transylvania to Austria; Dalmatia, the Pelopónnisos (Peloponnesus), and important Aegean islands to Venice; Podolia and the southern Ukraine to Poland; and Azov and the lands north of the Black Sea to Russia were confirmed in the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699). C3. Some Gains and More Losses Even at this time, however, the Ottoman Empire had enough internal strength to pull itself together, correct the worst abuses, and, by adopting modern European weapons and tactics, even regain some of its losses. In 1711 the Ottomans defeated a campaign mounted by Tsar Peter the Great, forcing him to return the territories lost at Karlowitz, but a war with Venice and Austria (1714-1717) led to the loss of Belgrade and northern Serbia. This stimulated a new reform era called the Tulip Period (1715-1730), in which the Ottoman army was reorganized and modernized in order to spare the empire further losses. This effort was continued during the reign (1730-1754) of Mahmud I, when the French artillery officer Claude de Bonneval, called Humbaracı Ahmed Pasha, created a new European-style artillery corps. As a result, in the war that broke out with Russia and Austria (1736-1739), the Ottomans were able to regain most of their previous losses in northern Serbia and the northern shores of the Black Sea. A period of peace with Europe followed, largely because of European involvement in other wars; this lull, however, once again convinced the ruling class that the danger was past, and the old abuses and decay soon returned. Consequently, in two disastrous wars between 1768 and 1792 (Russo-Turkish Wars), the Ottoman army crumbled, major new territorial losses were suffered, and the empire itself seemed near total collapse. D. Era of Modern Reform During the 19th century, the continuous danger of foreign conquest was aggravated by the rise of nationalism. One after another, the non-Turkish peoples of the empire sought and obtained independence. Greece was the first country to do so, gaining autonomy in 1829 and independence in 1830. This was followed by revolts of the Serbs, Bulgars, and Albanians, as well as of the Armenians of eastern Anatolia. Ottoman survival was due less to the empire’s own strength than to European disagreement over how to divide the spoils—a part of history often referred to as the Eastern Question. D1. The Tanzimat The Ottoman ruling class responded to these crises with a concentrated effort at reform; it replaced the old ways with new ones imported from the West in a reform movement (1839-1876) known as the Tanzimat (Turkish for “reorganization”). Planned and begun under Mahmud II, and culminating in the highly autocratic reign (1876-1909) of Abd al-Hamid II, the Tanzimat modernized the Ottoman Empire by extending the scope of government into all aspects of life, overshadowing the autonomous millets and guilds that previously had monopolized most governmental functions. A modern administration and army were created along Western lines, with highly centralized bureaucracies. Secular systems of education and justice were created to provide personnel for the new administration. Large-scale programs of public works modernized the physical structure of the empire, with new cities, roads, railroads, and telegraph lines. New agricultural methods also contributed to Ottoman revitalization. Another response was the suppression of minorities. This policy resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians from 1894 to 1923. (The Turkish government disputes that the Ottoman policy toward the Armenians was genocidal, arguing that most of the Armenian deaths resulted from armed conflict, disease, and famine during the chaos of World War I.) D2. European Sabotage Severe economic, financial, political, and diplomatic problems emerged, however, to undermine the Tanzimat reforms. The newly industrialized European states preferred to keep the Ottoman Empire as a source of cheap raw materials and a market for their manufactured goods. Using the Capitulations—treaties by which, since the 16th century, the sultans had allowed Europeans to live and work in the empire according to their own laws and under their own consuls—the Europeans were able to prevent the Ottomans from restricting foreign imports and thus kept them from protecting their own nascent industries. Because the Ottomans depended largely on foreign industrialists for capital and know-how, the Europeans could also undermine and destroy what industrial efforts were made. The empire borrowed so heavily from European banks that by the last years of the Tanzimat, more than half of its total revenues were consumed by interest charges. Moreover, the new and modern bureaucracy soon began to use its authority to misrule the subjects. A group of intellectuals and liberals known as the Young Ottomans for a Constitution then began to demand a limit to the power of the ruling class and the bureaucracy and a parliament to enforce the rights of the people. Severely suppressed by the Tanzimat leaders, the Young Ottomans fled abroad, publishing their demands in books and pamphlets that were sent into the empire through the foreign post offices, which, protected by the Capitulations, were free of Ottoman government control. At the same time, the newly independent Balkan states began large-scale agitation to gain control of Macedonia, where the population was almost evenly divided between Muslims and Christians. In Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria, societies were organized that sought to enforce their claims by terrorist campaigns, severely straining the ability of the Ottoman state to keep order. Finally, the deaths of the principal Tanzimat leaders about 1870 left the autocratic structure of government they had created in the hands of dishonest politicians, who resumed the corruption and misrule that had prompted the Tanzimat in the first place. D3. Coup and Constitution At this point a new international crisis, threats of a war with Russia and Austria, and the constitutionalist aspirations of a group of reformers led to the overthrow of Sultan Abd al-Aziz. After a very short reign, Murad V was succeeded by Sultan Abd al-Hamid II. He promulgated a constitution and accepted a representative parliament, which convened in 1877, but was soon suspended because of war with Russia. In cooperation with Britain, Abd al-Hamid managed to solve the international crisis at the Congress of Berlin (1878). He then moved to restore the Tanzimat reforms, which by the end of the century had created a relatively modern and prosperous state. In the face of continued European dangers, however, Abd al-Hamid suspended the parliament and installed a highly autocratic government in 1878. Governmental power was taken from the bureaucracy and centered in the palace, and all opposition was suppressed. Abd al-Hamid restored financial stability and advanced the economy, but the political repression ultimately led to the rise of a new liberal opposition movement, the Young Turks, who forced him to restore the constitution and parliament in what is known as the Young Turk Revolution (1908). The success of the new constitutional regime was immediately undermined, however, by a series of disasters: Austria annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria annexed Eastern Rumelia, and terrorism in Macedonia and eastern Anatolia resumed with renewed fury. Abd al-Hamid and those around him in the palace blamed these disasters on the new constitutional regime and attempted a counterrevolution in April 1909. Parliament was dissolved and many members arrested, but the army in Macedonia, dominated by Young Turks, marched back to İstanbul, defeated the counterrevolution, and dethroned the sultan. Subsequent Ottoman sultans reigned but did not rule. D4. The Young Turk Years The early years of the Young Turk era (1908-1918) were the most democratic period of Ottoman history. The constitution and parliament were restored, and parties were formed to contest for leadership. The strongest among them was the Union and Progress party, founded and supported by the Young Turks, but many others also flourished. The Young Turk reforms, which reached all areas of life, culminated in the secularization of the Muslim schools and courts and the introduction of women’s rights during World War I (1914-1918). The modern state apparatus of the Tanzimat was democratized, industry and agriculture were developed, and modern budgetary techniques were introduced. However, the First Balkan War (Balkan Wars) in 1912 led to a revolt within the Committee of Union and Progress and an attempt to take over the government by a triumvirate led by Enver Pasha. The triumvirate’s domination was assured when it took advantage of dissension among the victorious Balkan states to regain Edirne (Adrianople) in the Second Balkan War in 1913. D4a. World War I At first, the triumvirate tried to avoid involvement in World War I, but German offers to help regain lost provinces, British confiscation of Turkish warships being constructed in England, and manipulation by Enver Pasha led to an alliance with the Central Powers and Turkish entry into the war in 1914. The Turkish armed forces performed well during the Gallipoli campaign and drove back and captured an entire British expeditionary force at Al Kūt in Iraq. A campaign across the Sinai Peninsula with the aim of capturing the Suez Canal and Egypt was unsuccessful, however, and led to the British organization of an Arab revolt in the Arabian Peninsula. With Arab help, a British force from Egypt then invaded Syria and had reached southern Anatolia by the time the war ended. A campaign led by Enver Pasha into the Caucasus at the start of the war was defeated less by the Russians than by poor organization and revolts in the eastern provinces. Thereafter the Russians invaded eastern and central Anatolia at will in 1915 and 1916, until their campaign was brought to an end in 1917 by the Russian Revolution. The destructive effects of these foreign invasions were compounded by internal revolts, famine, starvation, and disease. Some 6 million people of all religions, one-quarter of the entire population, died or were killed, and the economy was devastated. D4b. Occupation and War of Independence In the wake of surrender, the Turkish government was placed under the authority of the Allied occupation powers led by the British. The Paris Peace Conference prepared to impose a settlement by which not only the Balkan and Arab provinces would be ceded, but areas occupied by predominantly Turkish populations in eastern and southern Anatolia would be placed under foreign or minority control. A large Greek army captured İzmir in 1922 and invaded southwestern Anatolia, but massacres of the Turkish population led the Allies to withdraw their support from the Greeks. In reaction to the proposed peace settlement and to the Greek invasion, the Turkish nationalist movement rose in Anatolia under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. During the Turkish War of Independence (1918-1923), Atatürk successfully resisted the Allied terms; drove out the Greeks and the British, French, and Italian occupation forces; and imposed a settlement, embodied in the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), by which the Turkish areas of eastern Thrace and Anatolia were left to form their own state. Following this victory, a Turkish republic was proclaimed, with its capital in Ankara, and the İstanbul government of the sultan simply ceased to exist in 1923. E. The Turkish Republic Led by Atatürk during its first 15 years, the Turkish republic was founded on six basic principles incorporated into the constitution: republicanism (based on the premise that sovereignty belongs to the people); Turkish nationalism (emphasizing the glories of the Turkish past and the need for the Turks to build their own state according to modern principles and without foreign intervention); populism (the idea that the people ruled through the Grand National Assembly, with all economic and social interests represented); secularism (dictating complete separation between the Muslim religious establishment and the state); statism (meaning state intervention in major sectors of the economy and its control of the rest, so as to assure rapid economic development); and revolutionism (dictating that all these changes be instituted at once and in full so that Turkish society could develop as rapidly as possible). The Atatürk years were ones of substantial economic progress and general development. Turkey avoided tendencies toward revenge, joining in close diplomatic relations with its former Balkan territories and at the same time emphasizing its secularist policy by avoiding alliances with its Muslim neighbors to the east. E1. From Neutrality to Western Alliance Atatürk was succeeded as president by his close associate İsmet İnönü, who continued his internal policies. Remembering the terrible experience of World War I, İnönü kept Turkey neutral during almost all of World War II; not until February 1945 did Turkey declare war on Germany and Japan. Following the war, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) attempted to include Turkey within its sphere of influence, demanding control of Turkey’s eastern provinces and the straits. In response, Turkey accepted large-scale aid offered by U.S. President Harry S. Truman and entered a close military and economic alliance with the United States; in 1952 it became a full member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Along with this new association with the democratic West, İnönü democratized the regime and allowed the introduction of opposition parties. This led to the triumph in 1950 of the Democratic Party (Turkish acronym, DP), advocating more private and individual enterprise than had been permitted by the statist policies of Atatürk’s Republican People’s Party (CHP), which now went into opposition. Led by President Celâl Bayar, along with Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and Foreign Minister Fuat Köprülü, the DP controlled the Turkish government from 1950 to 1960. The Turkish economy expanded rapidly during this time as a result of the new economic liberalism and the large-scale foreign assistance, principally from the United States, that followed Turkey’s entry into the Western alliance. Ultimately, however, too rapid economic growth and poor management led to severe economic and social strains and increasing political discontent voiced by the CHP, which the Democrats began to repress. In 1960 an army coup finally overthrew the government, hanged Menderes and a few associates on charges of corruption the next year, and installed a new constitution based on modern economic and social principles, with provisions to prevent the kind of repression the Democrats had inflicted. E2. Slide Toward Chaos After the second constitution was adopted in 1961, Turkey was governed by a series of ever-weaker governments. The rapid economic development of the 1950s, combined with liberal legislation freeing workers and others to unite, engendered a series of organizations that assumed power and authority formerly held by the government, the legislature, and the political parties. At the same time, an increasingly active leftist movement spawned violent extremist groups, which engaged in terrorist acts to achieve their ends. These in turn led to the formation of right-wing terrorist bands, leaving the country polarized and both sides fomenting violence. The labor organizations that sprang up after 1950 coalesced into two major labor confederations, Turkish Labor (Turk IŞ), representing the rightist and more moderate groups, and the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions, incorporating the Communist and other leftist groups. By the mid-1960s the influence of these organizations spread to all areas of Turkish life. Political affairs also were polarized in two major parties, the CHP, which under the leadership of Bülent Ecevit tended to incorporate social-democratic ideas, and the Justice Party (AP), led by Süleyman Demirel, which more or less represented the old Atatürk traditions. Several minor Communist and Socialist parties represented the various extremes of the left, whereas the National Action Party (MHP) spoke for Turkish nationalists and the National Salvation Party (MSP) advocated a return to an Islam-oriented state. Both of these parties favored active social and economic programs, making it difficult to classify them as right wing in the ordinary sense of the term. The proportional representation provisions of the 1961 constitution made it difficult for any party to gain the majority needed to enact effective legislation. Action, therefore, was taken to the streets. E3. Foreign Affairs Through all the governmental chaos of this era, Turkey remained faithful to its alliance with the West, providing military bases for NATO and U.S. forces facing the USSR. This alliance was subjected to considerable strain in 1974, when Turkey occupied the northern part of Cyprus in response to a Greek-engineered coup on the island. The United States subsequently suspended military and economic aid, and Turkey responded by temporarily closing all U.S. bases in the country. Turkish troops remained in northern Cyprus, and Turkey continued to support a separate Turkish Cypriot government, defying the United States and the United Nations (UN). The Congress of the United States ultimately resumed its assistance, leading the Turks to reopen the bases, but the incident left them suspicious of the U.S. presence, a situation encouraged and amplified by the vocal leftist groups and abetted by Communist propaganda. Islamic groups also began to oppose the U.S. presence, preferring that Turkey abandon its secularist traditions in foreign affairs and draw closer to the Muslim Arab countries that were benefiting from their newfound oil wealth and the resulting political power. E4. Army Coup of 1980 and Aftermath The government (1979-1980) of Süleyman Demirel chose to retain Turkey’s close alliance with the West in the hope of developing the private sector of the economy with foreign assistance. The CHP reacted by advocating socialist control of the basic means of production and the establishment of new alliances with developing nations and the Communist bloc. Extremists on both the left and the right turned to political assassinations and other forms of violent acts. On September 12, 1980, the army took over the government and suspended the constitution. The new rulers imposed martial law, banned political activity, restricted the press, and jailed thousands of suspected terrorists. The military governed through the National Security Council; the council’s head, General Kenan Evren, was chief of state, and Admiral Bülent Ulusu became prime minister. A major step toward civilian rule was taken in 1982, when a new constitution was enacted, under which Evren became president of the republic. Parliamentary elections in 1983 resulted in an upset victory for the conservative Motherland Party (the military had favored a more right-wing group), and party leader Turgut Özal became prime minister. In 1989 Özal was chosen as Turkey’s first civilian head of state since 1960, and Yıldırım Akbulut replaced him as prime minister. Mesut Yılmaz replaced Akbulut in 1991. In elections later that year, Yılmaz’s Motherland Party fell to second place behind Süleyman Demirel’s True Path Party, and Demirel became prime minister. E5. Recent Developments In 1993 Özal died and Demirel replaced him as the country’s president. Economics Minister Tansu Çiller replaced Demirel as leader of the True Path Party (Turkish acronym, DYP) and became the country’s first female prime minister. Turkey’s economy suffered because of government deficits, a weak currency, and continued economic losses incurred by the UN trade embargo of Iraq. In 1994 Çiller announced an economic austerity package, including price and tax increases and privatization of state assets, in an attempt to boost Turkey’s faltering economy. In 1995 parliamentary elections, the Welfare Party (Refah), an Islamic party led by Necmettin Erbakan, received the most votes in the elections but not enough to rule alone. Çiller’s DYP and Turkey’s other main secular parties refused to form a coalition government with the Welfare Party. In 1996 Çiller and Mesut Yılmaz of the Motherland Party (ANAP) formed a coalition government, but it soon broke down. Yılmaz announced his resignation, and the DYP was forced to form a coalition government with the Welfare Party, with Erbakan and Çiller alternating one-year terms as prime minister. When Erbakan was declared prime minister in mid-1996, he became the first Islamist leader of Turkey since the country was founded in 1923. During the coalition’s first year, Çiller suffered from a series of financial scandals, while Erbakan’s attempts to adopt Islamic policies in Turkey were heavily criticized, especially by the Turkish military, traditional defenders of Atatürk’s secular state. Erbakan resigned in June 1997 under intense pressure from Turkey's top military leaders, and President Demirel designated Yılmaz prime minister. Yılmaz formed a coalition government consisting of ANAP, a social democratic party called the Democratic Left Party (DSP), and a center-right party called the Democratic Turkey Party (DTP). In January 1998 the Turkish constitutional court outlawed the Welfare Party on the grounds that it threatened the secular nature of the Turkish state. Erbakan and several others were barred from politics for five years. Most other former members of the Welfare Party regrouped to form Virtue, another Islamic-oriented party, which retained Welfare’s position as the largest party in parliament. In December 1997 the European Union (EU) denied Turkey’s application for full membership due to factors such as Turkey’s continued military presence in northern Cyprus, the conflict between the government and the Kurdish population, and the country’s questionable record on human rights issues. (Turkey had applied for full membership to the European Community, the EU’s predecessor, in 1987.) Meanwhile Turkey’s crackdown on Islam continued, as more than 200 mayors and other officials with ties to Virtue underwent investigation by the constitutional court. In December 1999 the EU formally accepted Turkey as a candidate for membership. However, the EU’s announcement in October 2002 of an ambitious expansion plan in which ten additional countries would be offered membership in 2004 did not include Turkey, and no timetable was established for Turkey’s possible admittance to the EU. An EU report noted that Turkey had yet to meet the criteria for membership. In November 1998 a parliamentary vote of no confidence toppled the government of Yılmaz, who was implicated in a corruption scandal. Former prime minister and DSP leader Bülent Ecevit formed an interim government, which remained in power until national elections were held in April 1999. The DSP won the election, but strong showings by the rightist Nationalist Action Party (MHP) and Virtue made another coalition government inevitable. The following month Ecevit announced the formation of a coalition comprising the DSP, its former rival the MHP, and ANAP. In August 1999 a powerful earthquake centered near the northwestern city of İzmit struck Turkey, killing at least 15,000 people, injuring more than 30,000, and leaving tens of thousands more missing and presumed dead. Government-led relief efforts were slow to get underway, prompting criticism of the government. Many Turks also criticized building contractors, whom they blamed for using shoddy construction materials and practices that contributed to the collapse of many buildings. In May 2000 parliament elected Ahmet Necdet Sezer, the chief justice of the constitutional court, to the post of president. Observers described Sezer as a staunch advocate of democratic rights. In November 2002 national elections, amid a difficult economic downturn, Turkish voters rejected Ecevit’s coalition government and gave overwhelming support to the Justice and Development Party (AKP). The AKP, founded in 2001 from the moderate wing of a banned Islamist party, won 363 seats in the 550-seat parliament. The only other party to win seats in the parliament was the Republican People’s Party (CHP). Because AKP leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was constitutionally barred from running for a seat in parliament due to a 1998 criminal conviction for inciting religious hatred, Abdullah Gül, Erdoğan’s close ally in the AKP, became prime minister. After the November elections the AKP successfully backed legislation to amend the constitution to allow Erdoğan to run for office. In March 2003 Erdoğan assumed a seat in parliament after winning a special by-election in the southeastern province of Siirt, and he replaced Gül as prime minister. Erdoğan pledged to support secularism, Turkey’s bid to join the EU, and an economic austerity program backed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). By late 2004, Turkey’s success in meeting austerity measures required by the IMF, including initiatives that successfully reduced the nation’s stubbornly high double-digit annual inflation rates, prompted the IMF to extend an additional package of loans to Turkey for further tax, banking, and social security reforms. The improving economy allowed Turkey to introduce a new currency, the new Turkish lira (Yeni Türk Lirası, or YTL) on January 1, 2005. The YTL replaced the old Turkish lira (TL). One YTL is equivalent to 1 million TL. The new currency was expected to boost foreign investment and further stabilize Turkey’s economy as it pushes for future EU membership. Turkey previously boasted the world’s largest bank note, the 20,000,000 lira note, worth only about U.S.$15 in late 2004. E6. Kurdish Conflict The Kurds, a seminomadic people who have inhabited a region including parts of present-day Iran, Iraq, and Turkey since the 2400s bc, were promised an independent state as part of the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres between Turkey and the World War I Allies. That part of the treaty was never ratified, however. For several decades, the Turkish government discouraged Kurdish nationalism and culture, leading to a wave of uprisings. In 1984 separatist forces among the Turkish Kurds began intensive raids in southeastern Turkey against the Turkish government. These forces were led by the Kurdistān Workers' Party (PKK), a Marxist group considered a terrorist organization by the Turkish government. After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, Turkey supported the international effort to oust Iraq from Kuwait, although no Turkish troops fought in the ensuing Persian Gulf War (1991). After the war, in the wake of an unsuccessful uprising by Iraqi Kurds, hundreds of thousands of Kurdish refugees crossed the border into Turkey. Many were kept near the border under the watch of troops from countries that defeated Iraq in the war. In 1992 fighting escalated between Turkey and the PKK. In the mid-1990s, as Kurdish forces continued their attacks on locations such as coastal resorts and points in central İstanbul, the government responded with added troops and air attacks on suspected Kurdish strongholds. Meanwhile, thousands of Turkish Kurds sought refuge in the border region of northern Iraq, which had come under the control of the two main Iraqi Kurdish groups and was being monitored by the allied forces that fought in the Persian Gulf War. In 1995, 35,000 Turkish troops moved across the border into northern Iraq in an effort to prevent PKK rebels from mounting cross-border raids into Turkey. The troops took control of the 290-km (180-mi) border and moved about 40 km (about 20 mi) inside Iraq to surround several Turkish Kurdish guerrilla strongholds in the region. Turkish officials claimed they would only withdraw from the region upon the creation of a security border zone. However, Turkey withdrew its troops six weeks later. Turkey made periodic cross-border raids in the years that followed. In February 1999 Turkish military units, assisted by U.S. intelligence agencies, captured PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan in Nairobi, Kenya. Öcalan was imprisoned on a Turkish island and was tried on charges of treason. In June 1999 he was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. In the months following the arrest, terrorist bombings believed to have been conducted by the PKK in retaliation for Öcalan’s capture occurred in several Turkish cities. By mid-1999 the conflict between the PKK and the Turkish government had left at least 30,000 people dead or homeless. At the start of his trial, Öcalan expressed regret for all the bloodshed and called for peaceful negotiations between the Turkish government and the PKK. In August 1999 he called for a ceasefire. Six months later, in February 2000, the PKK announced that it was ending its armed struggle against the Turkish government. The organization said it would reconstitute itself as a political party and would use democratic means to improve conditions for Turkey’s Kurdish minority.
"Turkey," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2006 |
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