Turkey country profile

Turkey country profile
Once the centre of the Ottoman Empire, the modern secular republic was established in the 1920s by nationalist leader Kemal Ataturk. Turkey's progress towards democracy and a market economy was halting in the decades following the death of President Ataturk in 1938. The army saw itself as the guarantor of the constitution, and ousted governments on a number of occasions when it thought they were challenging secular values.
Efforts to reduce state control over the economy also faced many obstacles. After years of mounting difficulties which brought the country close to economic collapse, a tough recovery programme was agreed with the IMF in 2002. Since then, Turkey has seen strong economic growth and a dramatic fall in inflation. However, huge foreign debt and unemployment remain major burdens.
Concerns over the potential for conflict between a secular establishment backed by the military and a traditional society deeply rooted in Islam resurfaced with the landslide election victory of the Islamist-based Justice and Development Party (AK) in 2002.
The secularist opposition has on several occasions since then challenged the constitutional right of the AK to be the party of government. In March 2008 the Constitutional Court narrowly rejected a petition by the chief prosecutor to ban the AK and 71 of its officials, including President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for allegedly seeking to establish an Islamic state.
In recent years there have been several allegations that members of the military - which has long seen itself as the guardian of the secular system - have been involved in plots to overthrow the government.
GeographicalLocationTurkey occupies a unique geographic location.She lies Partly in Asia and Partly in Europe.Turkey is bounded by North by the Black Sea,on the North-East by Georgia and Armenia,on the East by Azerbaijan and Iran,on the Southeast by Iraq and Syria,on the Southwest and West by the Medditarrian Sea and the Aegean Sea and on the Northwest by Greece andBulgaria.
Importance of Geographical LocationTurkey has an important Geographic location.She connectsthree continents with eachother,at the same time a Europe,Asia,Balkan,Caucasian,Middle East,Mediterranean Sea.
Full name: Republic of Turkey
Population: 74.8 million (UN, 2009)
Capital: Ankara
Largest city: Istanbul
Area: 779,452 sq km (300,948 sq miles)
Major language: Turkish
Major religion: Islam
Official Language :Turkish
Life expectancy: 69 years (men), 74 years (women) (UN)
Monetary unit: Turkish lira
Main exports: Clothing and textiles, fruit and vegetables, iron and steel, motor vehicles and machinery, fuels and oils
GNI per capita: US $9,340 (World Bank, 2008)
Internet domain: .tr
International dialling code: +90
Membership of following International groupings/Organizations: 1-United Nation2-NATO3-The Europe of Council4-The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe(OSCE) 5-Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD)6-Associate Member of the Western European Union7-A Candidate for accession to the Europe Union as a Permanent Member.
8-OIC (Organization of Islamic Conference)President: Abdullah Gul
Abdullah Gul was chosen as president by parliament in August 2007, after months of controversy over his nomination. He is Turkey's first head of state with a background in political Islam in a country with strong secularist principles.
The months leading to his eventual election saw street demonstrations, an opposition boycott of parliament, early parliamentary elections and warnings from the army, which has ousted four governments since 1960.
Turkish secularists, including army generals, opposed Gul's nomination, fearing he would try to undermine Turkey's strict separation of state and religion. Secularists also did not want Turkey's First Lady to wear the Muslim headscarf.
The army top brass and the main opposition Republican People's Party, stayed away from Mr Gul's swearing-in ceremony.
Mr Gul started in politics in an Islamist party that was banned by the courts, but later renounced the idea that Islam should be a driving force in politics. In 2001, along with other moderate members of the Islamist movement, he founded the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and distanced himself from his past political leanings.
The party won elections in 2002 and Mr Gul served as stand-in prime minister before stepping aside for Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Mr Gul served as foreign minister under Mr Erdogan and cultivated an image as a moderate politician, acting as an impassioned voice for reforms to promote Turkey's EU bid.
The government holds most power but the president can veto laws, appoint officials, and name judges. Voters in a referendum in October 2007 backed plans to have future presidents elected by the people instead of by parliament.
Prime minister: Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Tayyip Erdogan, who became premier in March 2003, led his Justice and Development Party (AK Party) to victory in the July 2007 elections.
Erdogan called the poll early after the army-backed secular elite blocked his choice of an ex-Islamist ally as the next president.
The AK Party boosted its share of the vote in the 2007 parliamentary elections to 47% despite opposition efforts to portray his pro-business party, which has Islamist roots, as a Trojan horse set to turn Turkey into an Iran-style theocracy.
Mr Erdogan's governments have continued reforms and the modernisation of the country if anything faster and more effectively than most of their predecessors.
Mr Erdogan first became prime minister several months after his party's landslide election victory in November 2002.
He had been barred from standing in the poll because of a previous criminal conviction for reading an Islamist poem at a political rally. Changes to the constitution paved the way for him to run for parliament in 2003.
He identified EU entry as a top priority and introduced reforms which paved the way for the opening of membership talks in October 2005.
Although the AK has Islamist roots, he insists that it is committed to a secular state. From a lowly background, Mr Erdogan worked as a street seller to help pay for an education. He attended Koranic school before studying economics at university.
As mayor of Istanbul in the mid 1990s he banned alcohol in municipal buildings and won popularity for improving services.
Media
Turkey's airwaves are lively, with some 300 private TV stations - more than a dozen of them with national coverage - and more than 1,000 private radio stations competing with the state broadcaster, TRT.
Powerful businesses operate many of the press and broadcasting outlets; they include the Dogan group, the leading media conglomerate.
For journalists, the military, Kurds and political Islam are highly-sensitive topics, coverage of which can lead to arrest and prosecution. Rights groups say journalists have been imprisoned, or attacked by police. It is also common for radio and TV stations to have their broadcasts suspended for airing sensitive material.
Some of the most repressive sanctions have been lifted as part of reforms intended to pave the way for EU entry. But under Article 301 of the penal code, it remains a crime to insult the Turkish nation.
TRT introduced broadcasts in Kurdish, banned for many years, in 2004 as a part of reforms intended to meet EU criteria on minorities. Kurdish-language TRT 6 TV launched in 2009. Some overseas-based Kurdish TVs broadcast via satellite.
Around 26.5 million Turks were online by March 2008 (Internetworldstats). Internet sites have been subject to blocking. They include video-sharing service YouTube, which was banned over videos deemed to be insulting to the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk.
The press
Hurriyat- mass-circulation daily, English-language web pages
Milliyet - mass-circulation daily
Cumhuriyet - left-wing daily
Taraf - liberal daily
The New Anatolian - English-language
Today's Zaman - English-language version of daily
Yeni Asir - daily
Sabah - daily, English-language pages
Television
Turkish Radio and Television (TRT) - state broadcaster, operates four national networks
Star TV - private, the first station to break state TV's monopoly
Show TV - private, widely-watched network
Kanal D - private, widely-watched network
ATV - private
Fox - private
NTV - private
CNN Turk - Turkish offshoot of well-known news channel
Radio
Turkish Radio and Television (TRT) - state broadcaster, services include cultural/educational network TRT 1, popular music network TRT 3 and Turkish folk/classical music station TRT 4
Kral FM - popular private network
Super FM - popular private network