The Republic of Turkey, which has a population of 72 million, is located in a region where the Asian, European, and African continents come very close to each other, is surrounded by Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran to the east, Bulgaria and Greece to the west, and Syria and Iraq to the south. The majority of these borders were determined by agreements after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey has a magnificent past and is a land filled with historic treasures covering thirteen successive civilizations. Over the centuries, the Turks established many independent states and developed their own civilizations in different parts of Asia and Anatolia. The Ottomans created the greatest and most powerful state in Turkish history. As it is known, the Ottoman Empire had 600 years of history in Anatolia.
When the Allied Powers occupied and partitioned Anatolia after World War I, Mustafa Kemal, later surnamed as Atatürk (1881-1938), mobilized the Turks in Anatolia into a cohesive resistance force. The Turkish Nation started its War of Independence in 1919, under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal as Atatürk. He and his followers rejected the partition of the country and drove the opposing forces out of Anatolia.
After a victorious defense of the homeland for four years, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed with the Allies on 23 July 1923, which approved Mustafa Kemal's governmental sovereignty over Turkey's present borders. At this historical point, Turkey became internationally recognized as an independent state. Thus, on 13 October 1923, Ankara was declared as the capital city of newly independent Turkey.
The Turkish Republic is a nationalist, democratic, and secular state. The Turkish Grand National Assembly proclaimed the Republic on 29 October 1923 and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, was elected as the Republic's first president. He claimed that the military victory was not sufficient and that it had to be followed by profound economic, political, social and cultural reforms aimed at the modernization of Turkey. On the other hand, the ultimate goal of Atatürk's thinking was to make contributions to universal peace, happiness, and prosperity. Atatürk's revolutionary reforms were based on an aggregate of theories called Kemalism and the nature of the Kemalist ideology can be described in terms of six basic principles namely nationalism, populism, secularism, statism, republicanism, and reformism.
Being aware of the fact that the separation of religious and state affairs, as well as the provision of freedom of religion and conscience for individuals were among the prerequisites of forming a modern society, Mustafa Kemal initiated in the framework of the "principle of secularism," which is the essence of his reforms.
The Turkish Civil Code was ratified on 17 February 1926 to replace the old civil code and the Shariah Laws, which were the foundation stones of Ottoman Law. The ratification of the Turkish Civil Code made it necessary to secularize all legislations. The Code of Obligations, Criminal Code, and the Commercial Code were also written in accordance with contemporary principles.
Moreover, important steps were taken concerning women's rights. Women obtained the right to vote and be elected into the Turkish Grand National Assembly. Polygamy was also forbidden and marriages were required to be performed in accordance with the civil code to be officially recognized, and not according to the religious ceremonies in the past.
One of the most important reforms initiated by Atatürk was the preparation of the new Turkish alphabet by a board of linguists and academicians. The new alphabet required the use of Latin letters and was adopted by the Turkish Grand National Assembly on 1 November 1928.
The efforts to create a modern country based on secular foundation was also reflected in the Constitution. Turkey is the only pluralist secular democracy in the Moslem world and has always attached great importance to developing its relations with other European countries. Historically, the Turkish culture has had a profound impact over much of Eastern and Southern Europe.
Turkey's foreign policy is based on the basic tenets of Atatürk's foreign policy "Peace at Home, Peace in the World," which emphasizes the inseparability and vital interdependence between domestic social harmony and international order and solidarity. Turkey has favorable relations with almost all country blocks mainly as a result of her foreign policy based on mutual cooperation and peaceful coexistence.
Turkey is a member of various international political, social, economic, cultural, and military organizations. In order to ensure the integrity and security of the country, Turkey has continuously aligned itself politically and militarily with the western democracies after World War II. On the military side, this alignment culminated in Turkey's membership in the defensive North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Turkey is a member of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Having thus entered into very close cooperation with Western Europe in the political field, it was therefore only natural for Turkey to complete this in the economic area. Thus, Turkey chose to begin close cooperation with EU (then European Economic Community) in 1959. Eventually, Turkey was declared and acknowledged as a "country destined to join EU" by EU-member countries in 1999.
Turkey has successfully fulfilled all the political requirements critical to become an EU member, and this fact has been acknowledged by the EU Commission on 06 October 2004. This turn of events signaled the start of accession negotiations between EU and Turkey last 03 October 2005.
Meanwhile, the Turkish economy has been transformed by the steady growth of industry and services. Turkey's economic growth rate has been one of the highest in the OECD.
With the establishment of the Customs Union on 01 January 1996, Turkey has lowered her rate of protection significantly with the result that industrial goods have started to move freely between Turkey and the European Union. Moreover, due to the implementation of a broad liberalization process, the Turkish economy has displayed a high growth rate and industrialization.
Turkey's real Gross National Product (GNP) growth rates have reached fairly high levels. GNP averaged approximately 4% during the period 1990 to 2000. In 2004, GNP in Current Prices was realized at US$ 300 billion. The GNP growth rate was 9.9% in 2004. In 2004, the share of services in GDP was 68.2%, industry 18.9%, and agriculture 12.9%. In 2004, per capita income amounted to US$ 4,172.