Turkey at a Glance

Posted on Sun, Oct. 03, 2004

Population: 69 million

(July 2004 estimate)

Per-capita income: $6,700

(2003 estimate)

Median age: 27.3 years

Religion: 99.8 percent Muslim, mostly Sunni

Ethnic breakdown: Turkish, 80 percent; Kurdish 20 percent (estimated);
small numbers of Greeks, Jews and Armenians

History

Istanbul, formally Constantinople, was the seat of the Greek-speaking
Eastern Roman Empire (later the Byzantine Empire) and Eastern Orthodox
Christianity. The central Asian Ottoman Turks took the city in 1453
and established their own empire (including the Islamic caliphate),
which came to control much of the Middle East and parts of Europe.

Turkish troops were repulsed from Vienna in 1683, and the Ottoman
Empire fell into decline and was defeated fighting alongside Germany
in World War I. Most of the two million Christian Armenians who had
lived in the empire were forcibly deported or killed in a series of
massacres from 1915 to 1920.

In 1923, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded the Republic of Turkey after
driving out the Greek army and overturning the draconian Treaty of
Sevres. The remnants of a thriving Greek merchant community fled after
anti-Greek riots in the 1950s.

The Turkish military overthrew elected governments in 1960, 1971 and
1980, and in the 1997 “post-modern” coup, the military forced the
resignation of an Islamic fundamentalist prime minister.

Preparations for EU Membership

In the last two years, in an effort to comply with EU standards,
Turkey:

Banned the death penalty.

Allowed broadcasting and classes in the Kurdish language.

Banned sex discrimination, torture and honor killings.

Scrapped state security courts and reduced the military’s role in
government.

Eased bureaucratic restrictions on non-Muslim religious groups.

Lifted free-speech restrictions.