Country Profile

Turkey is a republican parliamentary democracy that has elections of 450 deputies every five years. The main power is in the president also elected every five years in May, currently Ahmed Necdet (since May of 2000). The president appoints the Council of Ministers after the nomination of Prime Minister by the people, and the National Security Council is an advisory to the president and his council.

In recent years Turkey became popular with European countries with a fast development of both summer and winter resorts, for it has history, culture and beautiful sites many people would love to see. Turkey is also one of the major cotton and wool producers. Its industries are growing rapidly and are mainly going in the direction of agriculture, metallurgy, manufacturing automobiles, and agricultural machines. Its main trading partners are the countries of Europe. 1 US dollar is roughly 47,963.00 Turkish Liras.

The Turkish government has a wide range of army personal consisting of: an army of 393,000 personal , an Air-force of 56,800 personal, and a Navy of 54,000personal

It has a budget of up to 4.6 billion (US) for weapons and such, which is considered to be the lowest among NATO countries, and mainly depends on the US and western countries for armored fighting vehicles, artillery, aircraft, missiles, and fighting ships. In addition, turkey is now considering F-16’s and upgrading of tanks and artillery. Turkey is in alliance with the USA. Like all countries Turkey has problems, its problems are with Azerbaijan about the lands but the problem has died over, but it still has problems with Iraq and Syria about the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Turkey’s area size is more or less 780,580 square kilometers, 770,760 sq. kilometers is made up of land, and the rest is made up of water, so it is slightly larger than Texas. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Iran, Iraq, and Syria all border Turkey. Its terrain is mostly made up of mostly mountains and narrow coastal plains, with many rivers such as the Tigris and Euphrates. It is also knows as one of the most earthquake prone countries in the world.

The Turkish people have to main ethnic groups, 80% of the people are Turkish, and the other 20% are Kurdish. Its main language is Turkish which is spoken by over 82% of the people, after that come 17% Kurdish, and Arabic, Armenian, and Greek are minorities. It is made up of 99.8% Muslims, 66% of those are Sunni and the others are Alevi (Shia) Muslims. Turkey is famous for many things, for example, believe it or not Turkey is the inventor of Kabab not Lebanon. Also, Turkey’s carpets are famous world wide, and it has many beautiful mosques. Last but not least, Turkeys palaces are famous for their architectural beauty.

Turkey has a wide range of resources, which are coal-mercury-copper- borate-sulfur-iron ore, and arable land. Turkey’s agriculture provides more than 50% of employment, most raw materials for industries, and 15% exports. Its main crops are wheat and barley, but its major cash crops are cotton, sugar beets, hazelnuts, and tobacco. Its live stock production is extensive and thankfully growing. Those were the good points in their natural resources, but the forest areas are poorly managed and its fisheries are underdeveloped.

Although the Republic of Turkey does not have a great influence on the world it is a member of many world wide societies, such as:-NATO, UNIKOM, UN, and UNISKO, and others, such as, AsDB, BIS, CCC, CE, and EAPC and many others to numerous to list. It is also known that Turkey influenced the Egyptian society.

Main points of Turkish History:

The Republic of Turkey received its independence on 29th of October 1923 with Mustafa Kemal as the newly and unanimously elected first president of the Republic of Turkey.

The fact that the separation of religion and state affairs mattered greatly in a modern society, Mustafa Kemal made many important changes. Some of those were: the religious school order was stamped out, the Shariah Courts were replaced by the Judicial Organization Law, and the turban and fez were banned and the "hat" became the official head gear.

Women’s right had many important steps taken towards it. To marry many times was forbidden, and marriages had to be officially recognized, and must go by the civil code, not by religious ceremonies. Also, by law women must have a court decree to get a divorce. Women also had the right to vote and be elected in the Turkish Grand National Assembly.

Friendship policies were made in1934, and the peace policy aimed at Europe to have Hatay rejoined to Turkey.

-Ismet Inonu was the second elected president of Turkey following Mustafa Kemal’s death. He was president and party chairman at the same time, and he led Turkey through the difficult years of war. His greatest success was keeping Turkey out of the Second World War, and later signed an agreement with Britain and France when the Soviet-German agreement was made.

A Democratic Party (DP) was made in January of 1946. The DP brought noticeable liveliness in the community and increased the living standards of the people. Many of the villages were provided with electricity, roads, and water. Agriculture and mechanization were started. The DP was closed down on the 27th of May because of losing support.

-in the Gulf War in which Iraq occupied Kuwait, Turkey was on of the first to impose on Iraq by the UN Security Council.

OPENING SPEECH