Talk:Turkey/Archive 13

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No Mention of Turkey's Membership in D8

I am new to wikipedia, hence could not edit a semi-protected article. Could someone with an account fix the fact that in the article there is no mention of the fact that Turkey is a part (founding member?) of the Developing-8 organisation. And the article says Turkey is a Developed Nation. I found this a little odd. (See Developing_8_Countries). Have a great day! 59.96.94.75 07:09, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Turkey Asian country

I stumbled onto this article and was shocked to find that some Turks actually believe they are considered a Eurasian nation, this is highly inaccurate. Turkey's small enclave in Continental Europe is neither a natural or ethnic reflection of the country, it would be analogous to argue that Spain is an African country based on its tiny outposts in North Africa. Additionally Turks have no ethnic, cultural or historical commonality with Europe apart from Terrorizing the Romanians and Balkan peoples. Koalorka 23:44, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me, but the Ottoman Empire (which is Turkish) controlled more of eastern Europe than the Roman Empire. Turkey is by far a European nation. As for your "Turks are Arabs" Lecture, Turks and Arabs are as different as Englishmen and Frenchmen, so please do some research before you come on Wikipedia and do this. Also, about the Turkey controlled more of Eastern Europe than Roman Empire, if you do not include Gaul, than the Ottoman Empire was more Northern European than the Romans.24.86.138.0 (talk) 02:02, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Do you know the meaning of Eurasia? It is the name of the main continent which contains both Europe and Asia. Let me put it this way, geographically, there is no difference between Germany, Turkey and China. They are all located on Eurasia. Deliogul 18:11, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

• Geographically there are the official continents of Europe and Asia that have clear borders. There is also the so-called Eurasian landmass. Your claims to be seen as more civilized by claiming commonality with Europe are false. Join the Arab league, much more suitable. Koalorka 19:33, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Turks have a saying, "Kazın ayağı öyle değil", which simply means "That is not the case". Europe and Asia are terms that were constructed according to the ancient understanding of the world, which is a perspective with no geographical basis. By the way, I think you are also not familiar with the ethnic distribution of humans because ethnically Turks have nothing to do with Arabs etc. Turks also have another saying, "Bilmeden fikir sahibi olmak", which means "Having an idea about a case without actually knowing the case". Think about it. Deliogul 20:00, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

• Europe and Asia are continents. I'm aware of the landmass that constitutes Eurasia but it is simply not classified a continent. Are you debating this, maybe you should point this out to the intellectual authorities, just so you can claim "Turkey is Eurasian" in a Wikipedia article. I've been to Turkey, and Egypt and Libya, Tunisia, Jordan I see no distinction between the peoples there, unlike Italy or Greece, Spain, whose people have a dramatically different appearance. You certainly have more in common with Arabs than any European, I find it comical that Turks living abroad strive to be considered Mediterranean or Southern European. Man up and take some pride in your own Mongoloid/Arabic ethnic inheritance. BTW your subtle insults in your Arab-derived language have no effect on me but only reflect your lack of civility. Koalorka 00:33, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Sadly, there is not a thing called Mongolic/Arabic ethnic inheritance in Turkey's case. Turks came from Central Asia and they are not Mongols (see Oghuz Turks) or Arabs. Also, what is the Arab derived language. Turkish language has its roots in Central Asia and once owned its unique language system (see Orkhon script). Of course, Ottomans adopted the Arabic "alphabet" because Arabic is the language which Qur'an was written in. This doesn't mean that Anatolian people were talking in Arabic, they were still talking in Turkish. There were some influences that shaped the direction of Turkish language. Once it was under the effect of the Persian literature and, during the 19th century, under the effect of the Western languages, dominantly French. Assuming that, at least, we all know that both French people and Persians are not Mongolic or Arabic, your interesting theory comes to an end here. Actually, it would be hard for you to conclude any discussion positively, as long as you keep your current way of thinking. Deliogul 20:20, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Timeline Broken?

Minor Technical thing, can someone with account fix it? There is this "time line" thing but when you click on it, well it look like cubist abstract art... no text no nothing. can someone delete that or switch it with an actual time line or something? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.161.69.231 (talk • contribs)

I think that cubic abstract art thing is like an icon of timelines. You should click the link next to it (History of Republic of Turkey) to go to the template, Template:Timeline of the history of the Republic of Turkey. The timeline is too wide, it may cause problems. deniz^T_C 05:59, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Is Turkey officialy an islamic or a secular country ?

My question is basically a question of intrenational law vs. the state's constitution.

Since: the OIC says that its goal is to: "promote solidarity among all islamic member states"

-Turkey officially appoints a foreign minister to the "Conference of Ministers" of the OIC, so it de facto acknowledges itself to be an islamic state,

-the Turkish representative, Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, is a Turkish official, representing the State of Turkey and acting on its behalf at the meetings of the OIC, and not on behalf of a private group (e.g. an Islamic Union of Istanbul, or something like that)

- The OIC is a group of countries, not individuals(by the way, the TRNC is not a full member of the OIC - and obvioulsy with no right to vote - but an observer state, as is the Russian Federation)

In a way, it is clear that Turkey admits, at least de facto if not de jure, that it is an islamic state - maybe not in the sense that (sunni) Islam is the state religion, but certainly not indifferent towards the religion of its citizens, as it would be in a 100% secular state. I agree that Turkey "has a strong tradition of secularism" in a kemalic sense, but that's not quite the same as being a secular state (I don't think that Italy or Spain are members of a Catholic Union).

Again, I think it's just a detail in international law not worth lingering on, but it is funny that Turkey always compains about the E.U. being a "Christian Club", while Turkey itself is a member of an islamic one. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.1.51.216 (talk) 22:04, 12 March 2007 (UTC).

If it's not worth lingering on, why did you post it? In any case, any complaint including the term "Christian Club" most likely refers to a Turkish perception of the EU as being suspicious of Muslim nations. The EU, as I'm sure you know, is not a religious institution. 85.117.44.53 18:35, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Secularism is one of the building blocks of Turkey. The state has no state religion. England has a state church but they are still secular and democratic so Turkey can be secular and a member of an Islamic organization at the same time. It looks like a dilemma at first impression but actually it is not. Also, you have to analyze Turkey's position in OIC. It is not like "come on Muslim brothers lets unite and destroy the western civilization!". Actually, we are the window of those Islamic states (sadly most of them are not developed) to the Western world. We broke the chains of imperialism (by both getting rid of the British and our own monarch) and we are the first nation to fought and won against the harsh rule of the Islamic law and we formed a modern secular state from the ruins of a collapsed empire. Turkey is not a procedural democracy, it is more than that. I'm saying it both as a free citizen of Turkey and as a student of International Relations. See you, Deliogul 22:29, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

What? Turkey never broke any chains of imperialism! Turkish imperialism ruled the Islamic world for centuries. Britian never successfully ruled Turkey. Britian ended *Turkish* imperialism at the Treaty of Sèvres. And that helped empower the nationalists who kicked Britian back out. Turkish nationalists were obviously secular then, although they are not secular today. I've no idea how the Islamic world sees Turkey today, but a "windows" seems ridiculously unlikely. How many Arabs learn Turkish? How many learn English?

To give a clear answer to the question: Turkey's constitution makes it secular, just like the US. Turkey has one dominant religion which oppresses all others any way it can, also like the US. Turkey has one enormously powerful & dangerous religious political party, again just like the US. Yes, "Islamists" are currently in control of Turkey, but these Islamists are not like the Talliban, they are much more like American Neo-conservatives.

Britian is a bad comparison since Britian is effectively far more secular than either the US or Turkey, even if less officially seclar. JeffBurdges 03:20, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Keep your "Operation Iraqi Freedom" dreams to yourself. And by the way, do you really think that learning english has ANTYHING to do with Britian, especially for Arabs? 88.245.72.166 01:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC).

Sometimes I see that people and institutions in Turkey fuse Islam with national identity and the Principle of the indivisibility of the Turkish state, as defined in the Constitution of Turkey. Things that have to do with religion (e.g. Armenian Christians, the question of the ecumenical status of the Patriarch of Constantinople, conversions to Christianity or things like that) are classified as violations of Article 14. How so? Does the indivisibility of the State comprise religious indivisibility - i.e. is Islam a nationally "safe" or preferable religion ? How is this combined with Kemal Attatürk's secular and anti-islamic atiitude ?

Secondly, can anyone tell me if the Article 14 has an enforced status in comparison to the other articles (e.g. those granting the freedom of speach, religion and opinion) of the Constitution? Is that legally possible? In most European constitutions it's almost a dogma that all articles are equal amongst them. How is the term "indivisibility" defined ?

To JeffBurdges, Turkey defeated the so called "invincible" Great Britain (of course politically, because we lost the WWI). Turkish independence was the first crack on the walls of the Western imperialism. On the other hand, Ottoman Empire was imperialist (haha of course it was, look at its name :D ) and nationalists ended the Sultanate so Turkey won another challenge against imperialism. By saying "windows", I didn't want to refer to culture imperialism because the example you gave about the languages is clearly culture imperialism. I tried to show the role of Turkey among undeveloped (maybe rich but politically undeveloped) Muslim states because I guess we are the only one to reach such a degree in democracy among Muslim nations. And your comment about secularism... I can't reach to a statement as fast as you could but it seems like Turkey lost some of its notion and ambition about developing. In 1930's, Turkey was a success story, in 1950's it slowly became the frontier of the Cold War and after 1960's (with the help of military coups and social uprisings), Turkey slowed down a little bit and this situation gives hope to Islamists (fundamentalists etc.) in Turkey. Therefore, it is a tuff political issue and we can't form clear statements about it so easily. Deliogul 19:56, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

yes we were ruling the rest of the world but im sure we were better than Bush. we are a great nation and be sure that we will rule again. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.96.212.144 (talk) 02:45, 1 April 2007 (UTC).

I can't see how it is secular when there is no freedom of speach for other faiths. http://catchthefire.com.au/blog/2006/11/09/turkey-converts-charged-under-speech-law/

It is true that some portion of the population is happy with the expressing of the Sunni Muslim point of view (they don't even like Alevi Muslim point of view to be expressed). So there is a problem there but the state is still secular, de jure totally and de facto generally. I think the current parliament causes such religion problems (they don't accept their pro- Islamist roots but the truth lies in front of us) and such problems can be solved with discussions because Turks live next to people from different nations or beliefs for a really long time. Also, citizens from other faiths can go to the court if they think that they are facing some kind of discrimination. Religion is a tuff issue but with a little understanding, the state is capable to keep and make secularism even stronger. Deliogul 19:10, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I would like to make a minor point which may or may not have been said earlier. You don't have to be an Islamic country to join OIC. India and the Phillipines, both of which have non-muslim majoritY populations. Tourskin 03:47, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Scientific output of Turkey

Turkey with its 70M population have the 60% science output of 1.5 Billion muslim world, besides its annual science output growth rate is even twice of some EU countries. I could not find any place to put these kind of scientific output information. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.96.179.60 (talk) 13:03, 14 March 2007 (UTC).

What about its grammatical content?

194.46.179.187 19:38, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

could you plese name any official international statistics resource (non turkish) which shows that turkey has 60 percent of all muslem scientific outputs? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.229.34.25 (talk) 22:52, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

• This claim seem rather ridiculous and another attempt a recent revisionist trend where Muslims claim to have somekind of scientific contribution to civilization, where in fact it has been historically MINUTE. It's like the "Egyptians are black" claim. Koalorka 23:38, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Accually, the Arab medical books of the 800s-1000s were the best sources until the 1800s and, well, that's not so minute to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.86.138.0 (talk) 02:06, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Please be a little scientific and academic, just for a "minute". Deliogul 18:14, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Look at the second definition of minute.66.211.241.60 (talk) 12:19, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

In case anybody wants to include it in the article, here I found a source for the 60% claim. Regards, Kerem Özcan (talk) 13:05, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

The survey that we had been waiting for

Finally :) I just ran into this: [1]. This should put an end to it. It is a major survey done by a major newspaper and research institutes among 50,000 people about the ethnic repartition and identification of Turkey. I will slowly integrate the info in there to concerned articles. It also includes the first serious survey on language repartition since 1965 btw.

So, among adults, 82 percent of the population are Turks, 13 Kurdish+Zaza, the rest Caucasian etc (obviously this was about self-identification, not genetic testing) And no, half the Turkey is not Kurdish or Albanian :)))

As for assimilation:

• 4 percent of the population self-identifies as Turk even though their first language is Kurdish,

• 8.82 percent self-identifies as Kurd even though their first language is ₥Turkish.

+ 1.38 percent has Arabic as first language even though 0.7 percent self-identifies as Arab, and there are more Arabs than Zaza.

There is more info in the survey, but those ones were interesting. Those percentages are included in the general self-identification survey. The info there can be used in many articles about Turkey, it is a pretty good source. It also includes info on Lausanne minorities. I will try to update this article based on that later today. Baristarim 17:33, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

As far as the language goes, 85 percent have Turkish as a first language, 12 Kurdish, 1 Zaza, 1.38 Arab, Turkic and Balkan languages 0.25 percent each, Laz 0.12 percent, Armenian and Caucasian languages 0.07 percent each, Greek 0.06 percent.

The info in that survey can also help update articles on these languages and related. It is pretty handy. Baristarim 17:39, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I missed it when this article was on the front page!!! Baristarim 17:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

There is another article at [2] - It is a survey done by the European Union about languages spoken.. That survey lists 93 percent Turkish as first language, 7 percent others.. Baristarim 00:19, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Congratualtions. I hope and wish that this survey might put an end to all the discussions going on. I believe we should make more people hear about this. Again, thanks for sharing. Thelorien 17:19, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, this survey clearly puts an end to any argument going on, doesn't it? Cause Turkey is a place that you can carelessly give answers about how you identify yourself ethnically to any reporter coming from the west, and the number of people who claim to have kurdish as a mother tongue in a survey using wrecked population statistics as the basis of sampling process clearly identifies the percentage of ethnic groups within population. Oh, and the newspaper cited is also one of the most impartial sources of information titled with a name as "nationality" and i guess this paper should also be known for reporting any item throughly and decently, so that we can agree that the survey it has paid to be conducted should be held as the last point to be made on the subject. What a relief this is..TheDreamingCelestial 01:24, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Soapboxing. Any other points? Baristarim 04:59, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Religion statistics

I noted that it's widely believed that 99.0% of Turkish population is Muslim. This percentage is getting upto 99.8% in some other sites. I tried to find a official or unofficial statistics in internet but I couldn't. I believe that this statistics don't reflect the reality. I've checked the talk archive of this article, and saw that there were some other people with same doubt, and asked for a citation. Current citation directs to a missing page. This page supposed to be in the site of an international development agency. It doesn't sound reliable. I added a 'citation needed' in this sentence. Please don't remove it until there's an official source of information. iyigun 20:30, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I added it, and that was the best one there was available. The link is there but there might be a typo. I have reverted you both here and in Religion in Turkey. I will try to fix the problem though. Baristarim 20:41, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

And not quite. A survey by a newspaper in 2001 had found that 97.4 percent were Muslims. However I cannot remember where I had seen it. Will check back in. And why is it not "reliable"? Please try to raise the issues in the talk page before making substantial changes and particularly before adding fact tags. Cheers! Baristarim 20:46, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

It is not reliable because they label people as Muslims right after they were born hehe :) I'm not the best Muslim around but my ID says that I'm one... This is the problem. See you, Deliogul 22:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I know :)) For one reason whenever I hear something like "99" or, even worse, "99.8" percent it just doesn't sound right.. There was a debate in another page sometime ago about Cultural Muslim.. Baristarim 23:11, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we can use your percentage (97.4%) in the article but we have to mention that this is the legal status of people and doesn't have to be correct in real life. Deliogul 09:32, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not reliable because they don't give any source to the information in their site. Do you really believe that an agency which defines itself as "international development agency" can determine such statistics? If you find such statistics in "www.die.gov.tr" or from a respectful international organization which deals with statistics this would be reliable. Btw, the link in the citation doesn't work. Please either remove the citation or correct the link. iyigun 19:10, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

As a second topic, if we're not able to confirm the statistics, we should write that this is not confirmed. In my opinion it could be written like "although it's not confirmed, it's widely accepted that..." I don't think wikipedia is the correct place to express such wishes or claims. iyigun 19:10, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I think this Muslim identity issue is more than claims in Turkey's case. Also, this 99% thing is not "widely accepted", it is "widely imposed"... See you, Deliogul 19:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

On a side note, that info was sourced (and the sources are the best thing we have, unfortunately), I am still trying to figure out why the link is not working.. In any case, even though we know that the 99 percent figure is mostly imposed since nearly everyone is marked with a religious marker as soon as they are born, it is not for us to judge to what degree until the day there are major surveys about religion in Turkey.. I wonder why the link is not working, it was from a UN agency as well.. Baristarim 19:29, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear Baristarim, don't you think that we should at least mention in the article that "99%" does not reflect reality because of this reason or that reason? You also know that this religion marker you're talking about is the reason of this high value in the statistics and there has never been a major survey. Can't we just tell it to other people also? If it's written here as 99% and reference a site, someone reading this may think it's actually reality. iyigun 17:52, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

In Turkey, is it not required that every individual be born into a religion? If nothing else, I heard that one was automatically registered by the government as a Muslim, but correct me if I am wrong. Maybe thats why the percentage is higher than should be.Tourskin 03:50, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

"Muslim 99.8% (mostly Sunni), other 0.2% (mostly Christians and Jews)" I am quoting this from the CIA World Factbook... please change it because it is the most current and accurate source.

These numbers are pure political. As Tourskin said, you are given the religion of your father when you were born (in many cases Islam) and nobody asks anything about it again during your life if you don't change it with your own will (which is nearly impossible in many regions of Turkey). So in that 99.8%, there are practicing Sunnis, Cultural Muslims, atheists, deists etc. That 99.8% also contains a huge Alevi population that is very different from the Sunni population. I'm not even talking about the state's suppression on non-Sunni people (by giving insane funds to Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı etc.). Deliogul 10:26, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, in the 2008 budget of Turkey, the government is giving an appropriation of 1,5 billion dollars to the Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı. If they would give this money to a single person, the guy would directly enter the "top ten wealthiest people list" of Turkey. Deliogul (talk) 17:40, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Vandals back again

User:Bush is vandalising the article. I reverted twice but he keeps vandalising. He should be stopped immediately.--Ugur Olgun 20:20, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

What just happenned??!!! Man, some people are really going out of their way to be negative.. And now the article is full protected.. Baristarim 21:20, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh man, I was going to work on updating the demographics section tonight with the help of the survey above... :( Baristarim 21:24, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

If there's no objections, I'll unprotect and set sprotection back again. The vandal is bound to run out of sleeper accounts at some point. El_C 21:27, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I am ok with that. Baristarim 21:28, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

And we can always introduce range blocks, or even contact its ISP and file an abuse report. El_C 21:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

They've tried range blocks did not work. Artaxiad 03:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Sure. Let's just see what will happen. If he is using proxies it could be harder to stop him, but I don't know... Baristarim 21:44, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

He doesn't use proxies. Artaxiad 03:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

That guy has got too much time in his hands to waste :) Baristarim 01:09, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't we all? (Despite being very busy at the same time, maybe) Did we not block the page before against new users? Did s/he have all of those user names ready? Man, people think a lot ahead. :) deniz^T_C 06:36, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Those sleeper accounts (and the ones at Armenia) involve really well-sought-out names, though! I find that somewhat amusing. ;) El_C 03:21, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

IP filtering..

I think we need IP filtering.. We shouldn't allow any IP to edit this page from Armenia. They do change more than us.. WHO LIVES IN TURKEY?? THEY OR WE??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.233.97.30 (talk • contribs)

Well, in any case I will second what Atilim said in one of his edit summaries and ask the anon what relation that addition has to do with this article. I mean, I read it and it can be of use in another article (I don't know the subject though), but it doesn't seem to have much to do with this page, let alone the need to have it all the way up in the beginning... Baristarim 23:35, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

He just wants attention no one wants that in the Armenia page because its BS to them, so he is trolling here. Artaxiad 23:43, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

If you guys will be IP filtering, 63.43.36.* should be enough for now. Arin whois for the IP along with abuse-emails and phones.deniz^T_C 01:33, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles can be edited by anyone. We don't exclude editors based on where they live or don't live. Turkish editors and readers do not own this article. IP filtering, blocking certain IPs from editing specific articles, is also technically impossible. Aecis^Brievenbus 12:04, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

We don't own this article. It belongs to the universal knowledge. Yurttaşlar, Please be calm while expressing your ideas. Deliogul 12:19, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Are you talking about my comment? I don't know about technical impossibilities, it does not seem impossible to me, it might just not be implemented in the wiki source code yet for some reason, though I have doubts about that; as far as I know there are bunch of IP's blocked (I know that some Yemeni Ip's are blocked at least). We exclude editors based on what they do. There are rules in every society and one needs to follow the rules. We are provided these Internet services under some rules, we should not abuse them. Anyway, if I was going to take some action, then I would just do that.

Now, giving information about vandal might keep the vandal away, hopefully. Once we write rv v , so claim that someone is vandal, this is not going that far, I think. Anyway, like Nasreddin Hoca said, What about the thief who succeeded to make some admin protect the article, now we can't improve it easily.

Also, if this vandal is really Ararat arev, he is already excluded'. Apparently now s/he hacked into people's accounts, so this is not simple vandalism, as having disturbed bunch of people, related, unrelated, attacking their personal accounts, etc.; but this is probably an easy to do action (as hacking accounts of users' with easy password, probably many people can do it), it is not like hacking and unblocking himself/herself. deniz^T_C 15:02, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm talking about 88.233.97.30. I was sure that you can understand that. 88.233.97.30 has to understand that you don't have to live in a place to know something about it. Take care, Deliogul 17:52, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Delioglu, I didnt tell that filter all world except Turkey. I said it is better to filter Armenia. This is very well known technic used to prevent attacks: "Filter some region of world which is the origin of attacks." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.233.97.30 (talk • contribs)

88.233.97.30, please understand that what you said was wrong (except maybe the first sentence). We should not care about countries of origins of editors. Let's try to improve all of the articles all of us. If you want to reply, please leave a comment at User Talk:Denizz. deniz^T_C 21:54, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

1. This goes against what Wikipedia stands for. Period. Origin of the editor doesn't matter. I have just as much right to add information to United Kingdom as a British citizen, and an Armenian has just as much right to edit Turkey as a Turkish citizen. If someone disrupts or vandalises this article, it needs to be dealt with on an individual basis. It is irrelevant to that disruption where the editor lives.

2. It is not possible to block IPs and accounts from editing individual articles. See Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive 5#Can a user be banned from editing a single page? for more information. Aecis^Brievenbus 21:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Pictures

What happened to the pictures? Baristarim 18:14, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

As You can see,deleted due to Copyright problems. There is a gap in our watchlist. Please check a way for watch to deletion nominated images.Must.^{T C} 18:54, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Broken link

Ocobot identified one broken link in this article: http://www.unfpa.org.tr/turkey/countryinfo.htm. I'd replace it with http://www.unfpa.org.tr/countryinfo.htm but I cannot as the article is protected against editing by normal registered users. Please take care of this. Thank you. — Ocolon 08:38, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I have fixed it. But it's funny - it doesn't seem to be the same link which I had pasted a while back, even though it looks very similar. Did they take the info out since then? I will check into this asap, so in the meantime don't remove it yet please! Baristarim 05:31, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Motto

The motto of Turkey isn't unofficial. It's official. See also Turkish Version of Wikipedia.

Actually, a national motto is a word or sentence which you can read on the emblems and coat of arms of the countries. Turkey hasn't got such a word on her flag and, imho, Turkey has no coat of arms either. We can call SPQR a national motto but we can't determine a motto for Turkey because there is not an officially accepted one. Turkey uses different quotes from her founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Deliogul 11:18, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Why is the motto line not deleted on the page? Clearly it is not the officially accepted motto and it neither reflects the country's policies or actions..TheDreamingCelestial 01:13, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

State policies aren't determined according to mottos in many countries. I know many mottos about freedom etc. but some of the countries that use this kind of mottos are actually not democracies or they are in anarchy. Deliogul 16:12, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

hi

hi - why is the article locked?? grrrr.... --74.53.88.50 10:12, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I guess, it is locked because of some high profile! vandals. We can barely add new things to articles because all we do is to fix the articles after vandal attacks. Take care, Deliogul 11:22, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Lol, Wikipedia has now a new(?) type of vandalism, Ararat arev vandalism. deniz^T_C 17:48, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

"Armenia ancient records" vandalism

It's getting annoying having to revert all the sock puppets that are vandalizing this article with the same text, over and over and over again. Honestly, WTF? --Kimon^talk 19:29, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

It's someone who's got a whole drawer of aged socks ready, obviously. I've just requested full protection, and hopefully a checkuser will get to the whole "Armenia-Azerbaijan" case sometime to try and clear this sock drawer out. (Though with the sheer insanity that's turning into, it's likely to take them a while to sort through.) Tony Fox (arf!) 19:33, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I haven't been doing nearly as much against it as you, but I agree. How many sockpuppets did he have in waiting for this moment anyway? They all had to be at least 4 days old to edit the article. He must have been running out of names, because Sock really sounds unimaginative. --LuigiManiac 19:36, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

The guy must've been planning this for a while. But, for so much preparation, this is pretty lame vandalism.

As for the name, "Sock" is rather dull. But, I'm surprised nobody had already used it before.

On another note, how would someone clear this "sock-drawer" out? Check the IP addresses? --Kimon^talk 19:38, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, over at requests for checkuser, this has been lumped into a case with about two dozen or so other users tied in with an arbitration case. It's an absolute mess. But, hey, it gives me something to do during sanity breaks at work... Tony Fox (arf!) 19:40, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

And a cookie for Deskana for the full protection. That mean I have to go back to work now? Tony Fox (arf!) 19:43, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

It is not only creating new user accounts, having gazillions of sock accounts ready, that is what I thought at first, too. According to Artaxiad, now a fellow banned editor who has connections to Ararat Arev, Ararat arev hacks into other user accounts as well, by guessing their passwords. Apparently there are bunch of wiki editors with easy to guess passwords. So, this case is bigger than it seems. Wikipedia really should implement that code to filter IP's, but the authority to filter IP's should be given committee's of administrators. deniz^T_C 19:47, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Fully protecting the page might take care of the immediate issue, but damn! It just sucks to have to do that all the time. It's a wiki version of a DoS attack. In regards to the passwords, perhaps password rules should be implemented. That would take care of the "easy to guess" password problem. And on the the IP filtering, how would it be different to the current IP blocking mechanism that's in place? --Kimon^talk 20:01, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I think with the current IP blocking, we can only block the anon's, here that is not enough. We need some IP filtering at least during account creation (just like proxy IP's). If the vandal uses bunch of different IP's, we might need to contact the service provider. I guess I am going to do that soon, as the person is really going overboard. I don't know whether that will help. It would help greatly if he were using some school account or something like that to access wiki, but he is not. deniz^T_C 20:13, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

editprotected

{{editprotected}} I wanted to make some (rather minor) changes, I will write them down, and that put the editportected tag if there are no objections. I was just going to make these edits, but due to Ararat arev's (or maybe Artaxiad?) disruptive edits, I cannot do it now

section Turkey#Pre-Turkic History of Anatolia: from

renaming it Constantinople (now İstanbul). After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it became the capital of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire.

to

renaming it New Rome (later Constantinople and Istanbul). After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it became the capital of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire).

please remove the blank space at the end of section as well (one byte gained one byte gained)

Since this page was very recently protected for edit warring, it wouldn't be appropriate for anyone to make this kind of change. The protection will likely be removed in a few days, at which point you will be able to edit the article to make the desired changes. CMummert · talk 12:28, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Demographics

The article says ...Turkey prohibits by law the wearing of religious headcover and theo-political symbolic garments for both genders in government buildings, schools, and universities... Does this mean: schools, universities and government buildings OR government buildings, government schools and government universities? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.190.253.129 (talk • contribs)

That means all schools, unis etc. Turkey has a unified education system, which means all schools and universities, even though some are private, fall under the jurisdiction of one national education ministry for general guidelines on how they function. Nevertheless, I see where the confusion is coming from and I will move "govt buildings" to the end of the sentence. Baristarim 12:36, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I must add that such "ban" certainly doesn't include all the universities. Actually the university administration chooses whether or not to ban religious symbols, etc. Bilkent University is an example where there's no such ban (or any kind of problem for that matter), no one bugs anyone for their attire. The women who cover their heads do so with hats or wigs though.. In some other universities like Gazi University, the choice is mostly up to the instructors; they can take some action or they may just ignore it. Yet in some other universities the people sporting the so-called religious symbols can't even enter the campus. One last thing, there's no law explicitly prohibiting "the wearing of religious headcover and theo-political symbolic garments" Ozkaplan 12:23, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry but this is false. It is banned in all educational systems regardless of the ownership status (public vs. private). The university administration does NOT have any authority over this issue. Basar Kizildere 11:38, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

As a Bilkent University student, I feel myself responsible to correct this false argument. Firstly, I have to say that girls with headscarfs are very rare in Bilkent. My observation is, people wear religious headcover inside the campus but not in buildings. When they enter a building, they uncover their hair. I am pretty not sure whether it is allowed and legal but as I previously said they are walking around with headscarfs in the campus but they are not allowed to enter the buildings with headscarfs. --Ugur Olgun 05:37, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes there is a "law" in the large sense: court decisions by the Constit Court and Court of Cassation which explicitly ban it. In law, jurisprudence (court decisions) are also considered as making up the "body of law".

Well, as for Bilkent et al - I really doubt it: The university administration doesn't have the legal prerogative to have the right to decide. Wigs and hats example is a good one since it shows that it actually is banned. The thing is, they cannot simply hunt down every single student - but what matters are the exams: they are banned during the exams and that pretty much means that it is banned in the uni. If you cannot pass exams, no diploma :) Baristarim 14:31, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Everybody is right, in a way. The headscarf ban for university students is unevenly enforced. Ditto for civil servants (visit the municipal offices in Istanbul and you'll get your confiration). As far as the law/regulation goes, it is for the univesity students, and civil servants -- the general public even inside government buildings can use headscarves unimpeded with some rare exceptions. 85.102.155.228 16:20, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Nobody is prohibited from entering the exams for covering her head in Bilkent. Where did you hear that? :) Yes it may be banned in a broader sense and the university admin. may not have legal authority over the matter but it certainly has in practice and that's what i'm talking about. And please don't get excited as if this is a debate on whether or not to ban the headscarf and such, we're just talking. Besides, my main aim was to inform non-natives that's all. Another example; I know for a fact that some instructors in Bilgi University allow students wearing headscarves to attend the lectures. cheerio.. Ozkaplan 10:02, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Page protected

Page protected to deal with vandalism once more. I'm still banging my head against my desk over this... it's amazing how persistant some users are, so we need to send the message clearly... "We don't care, go away". --Deskana (fry that thing!) 16:55, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Religion?

What religion status has Turkey? How many muslims (Shia/Sunni), christians and so on. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.108.226.234 (talk) 18:02, 14 April 2007 (UTC).

It is in the article, and is comprehensively covered and links to other articles which cover the subject fully is given as well :) Baristarim 01:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Mustafa Kemal founded the national movement of Turkish people did you know that?--122.2.62.245 07:53, 17 October 2007 (UTC)--122.2.62.245 07:53, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Sockpuppet attacks?

This page is getting vandalised a lot, dispite the semi-protection. What makes me point the finger at sockpuppets is the curious manner in that the attacks bring the page to a similar or identical state as other attacks I've seen. Either hunt the puppeteer or consider stricter protection. Bob f it 13:49, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

They are sockpuppets of User:Ararat arev (I hope I got it right this time). He has already been banned from editing either from an account or anonymously, but from what I hear he has been hijacking these accounts and using them to bombard the article. --LuigiManiac 13:57, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

It's been happening recently today. BuickCenturydriver (Honk, contribs) 16:08, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Ararat arev.. He will eventually get tired and do something more worthwhile. :) Baristarim 03:48, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow, 244+58 sockpuppets at the moment, so 303 accounts (probably many more). He stopped being imaginative though. Deniz^T_C 05:20, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

False interwiki

{{editprotected}}

Please remove the Emilian-Romagnol (eml:) interwiki, which covers the bird turkey rather than the country. Steinbach (fka Caesarion) 17:42, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Y Done --ais523 17:49, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Area

The information given isn't accurate. Please check tr:Türkiye.Mavromatis 19:46, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Add archaeology link

{{editprotected}}

Someone added this link at archaeology, for which it is too specific, but I thought it might be used here, either in External Links or under the prehistory section: Archaeological Turkey PaladinWhite 12:21, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe under Tourism in Turkey or History of Turkey (or History of Anatolia)? I am really wary that any additions of touristic ELs will break down the floodgates.. Baristarim 12:56, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

External links should not be put in the article body, and this one doesn't fit into the external links section at the end, which is carefully focused. CMummert · talk 13:01, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

• shrug* I haven't done any work on this article, but the link looked potentially useful, so I just wanted to pass it on to those who would have a more educated perspective on it. PaladinWhite 15:55, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

No worries! I will see what I can do with it, I will add it to one of the articles above. Cheers! Baristarim 17:21, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

External links in the article body are called "citations". If you want to stick an external link into an article, find some claim that the linked page makes and cite it. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 21:39, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

the vandal always wins

I started to hate this, whenever I try to edit this article, I find out that mr vandal, Ararat arev, or Artaxiad, or whoever else, with their hundreds of (suspected) sockpuppets, and gazillions of hacked accounts, managed to get the article protected once again. Please tell me on which administrative page I should mention this, so that we can possibly stop it. Apparently no one is going to do anything except reverting and protecting, and the vandal gets away with it. If we have similar vandals attacking other articles, this might be the doom of Wikipedia. deniz^T_C 00:47, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

And what else can be done? I dare say every option has already been considered. --Deskana (fry that thing!) 21:18, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that is about all we can do. But we do understand that this is a pain in the ass, too, and we will be very happy to make protected edits. Just put up {{editprotected}} and say what you want done. It sucks, I agree, but sooner or later the guy will get bored and go away. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 03:05, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Abdullah Gul

Just note there is no entry for Abdullah Gul, currently Foreign Minister and set to become President of Turkey —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 57.67.177.33 (talk) 10:19, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

Abdullah Gül deniz^T_C 03:24, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

He withdrew his nomination... --Armanalp 17:57, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

There is no "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus", please amend! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.202.137.238 (talk) 16:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

According to Turkish state politics, there is a seperate state in the northern part of the island. It is clear that this state is not an official sovereign state. Therefore I want to ask two questions. First, why did you write this comment under "Abdullah Gül" headline? Second, do you want us not to count a governmental body as an actor in the region because it is not a legitimate one? Don't forget that, even if Turkey doesn't accept Northern Iraq as a seperate political entity, this doesn't change the reality about the autonomy that is enjoyed by the Kurdish population in the region and their effect on the regional politics. Deliogul 19:01, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

section Turkey#Turks_and_the_Ottoman_Empire

I think the following sentence is not correct:

"Following their victory over the Byzantine Empire in the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Turks began to abandon their nomadic roots in favour of a permanent role in Anatolia, bringing rise to the Seljuk Empire.[20]"

If you have ref #20 (cyril mango, oxford history of byzantium), please check it, and if the sentence above is not correct, write down the corrected version below, so that an admin can edit it. Thanks. deniz^T_C 03:24, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Next sentence should also be fixed, 200 years is not a short time. deniz^T_C 03:26, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

section republican era

Turkish republic of northern Cyprus was established about 9 years after the invasion. we might need to revise the sentence. deniz^T_C 03:33, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Any comments? Deniz^T_C 16:52, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

They wouldn't become an empire if they weren't settled but I'm not sure that they gave up nomadic tradition specially for Anatolia. Also, nomadic tradition didn't just go away, there were many people in Turkish ruled lands that still live according to old traditions. Deliogul 16:17, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Edits to chronically protected page

Feel free to outline your edits here and an admin may add these to the protected page for you. Thank you, and sorry for the inconvenience. El_C 02:34, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Motto

Shouldn't as turkey's national motto be as "ne mutlu türküm diyene" this phrase is more commonly used. Or maybe "egemenlik kayıtsız şartsız milletindir" as it is written on parliment.

Actually, a national motto is a word or sentence which you can read on the emblems and coat of arms of the countries. Turkey hasn't got such a word on her flag and, imho, Turkey has no coat of arms either. We can call SPQR a national motto but we can't determine a motto for Turkey because there is not an officially accepted one. Turkey uses different quotes from her founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Deliogul 11:17, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that "ne mutlu turkum diyene" (how proud are those who pronounce themselves as turks) should be marked as the motto, because it defines the structure and reality of the state and also all the elementary school students are made to cry this motto out every single day in the state schools which comprehend some 80%+ of the people at that age. It is also frequently used in the military as the young male population is forced to cry this slogan out throughout the mandatory military service and they are also made to write this slogan in the face of the mountains with rocks painted in white, especially in the regions where the low-intensity war with the kurdish separatists is going on. the current 'motto' listed is one of the more moderate sentences devised by M.Kemal (the founder), but it is not actually referenced that much aside from some opportunistic accounts in contemporary history books and it is mostly favored by a small cadre of elitist intellectuals and not the state itself.TheDreamingCelestial 01:39, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[Proposed edit 1]

minor edit section Turks and Ottoman Empire from

In its wake, one of the Turkish principalities governed by Osman I was to evolve into the Ottoman Empire, thus filling the void left by the collapsed Seljuks and Byzantines.

to

In its wake, one of the Turkish principalities in Anatolia governed by Osman I was to evolve into the Ottoman Empire, thus filling the void left by the collapsed Seljuks and Byzantines.

Thx deniz^T_C 03:29, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Y Done--WinHunter ^(talk) 03:57, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[Proposed edit 2]

undelete the article, immediately, please deniz^T_C 16:00, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

My apologies, the deletion was to remove the recent disruptive edits which has made the history not useful, it has now been restored and unprotected. --WinHunter ^(talk) 16:05, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[Proposed edit 3]

section Turkey#Turks and the Ottoman Empire from

The empire was not to last, however; by 1243 the Seljuk armies were defeated by the Mongols and the power of the empire slowly disintegrated. to

In 1243, the Seljuk armies were defeated by the Mongols and the power of the empire slowly disintegrated.

section Turkey#Republican era

1. from Kemal Pasha to Mustafa Kemal
2. from Following a decade of intercommunal violence on the island of Cyprus and the subsequent Athens-inspired coup, Turkey intervened militarily in 1974, resulting in the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus recognised only by Turkey. to

Following a decade of intercommunal violence on the island of Cyprus and the subsequent Athens-inspired coup, Turkey intervened militarily in 1974. Nine years later Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) was established. TRNC is recognised only by Turkey.

Please also redo the edit suggested by WardHayesWilson below. Deniz^T_C 01:56, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Suggested readability edit

The first sentence of the Culture article is hard to read. "Turkey has a very diverse culture that is a blend of various elements of the Oğuz Turkic and Anatolian, Ottoman which was itself a continuation of both Greco-Roman and Islamic cultures, and Western culture and traditions which started with the Westernization of the Ottoman Empire and continues today."

I suggest the sentence be edited to read "Turkey has a very diverse culture that is a blend of various elements including Oğuz Turkic and Anatolian, Ottoman (which was itself a continuation of both Greco-Roman and Islamic cultures), Western culture and traditions which started with the Westernization of the Ottoman Empire."

I'm not sure my edit preserves the full intention of the original. My guess is the author is involved in a complicated political act of trying to carefully acknowledge a host of cultural influences and at the same time subtly and carefully suggest the importance of each without offending anyone. But the sentence as constructed is confusing and hard to understand.

Maybe it should be broken into two sentences. WardHayesWilson 15:03, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

This article is not currently under full protection, you may edit it yourself. --WinHunter ^(talk) 19:51, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Y It is protected now, and it's been two days without any objection, so they've been split into two sentences without changing the meaning at all. [3] Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 22:42, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Prime Minister

According to Turkish Constitution article 109 "The Prime Minister shall be appointed by the President of the Republic from among the members of the Turkish Grand National Assembly." so "Neither the Prime Minister nor the Ministers have to be members of the parliament" statement in wikipedia article is false, at least for prime minister.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.234.60.255 (talk • contribs) 13:43, April 27, 2007 (UTC)

Request / Serious harm done by an administrator

{{Editprotected}} This article is a Featured Article. so I request that an admin add the {{featured article}} template so that the little cute star appears at the top right corner of the article. Thanks. --Michalis Famelis (talk) 11:47, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Can someone look carefully at the history please, to me, it appears it has been reverted to a much earlier version. --A.Garnet 14:01, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

A.Garnet is right. The problem is not just a missing {{featured article}} tag. Going through the history, I see that the problem is introduced by admin User:Shreshth91 at 17:05, 28 April 2007 ([4], marked "minor" with edit summary "moved User:Riana/Turkey dump to Turkey: history merge"), reverting the article to a much older state easily recognizable by its layout / linking of currently non-existing images / lack of {{featured article}} template at the top. All the good-faith edits after that point only fix the issues of an obsolete version of the article, like the linking of dead-images. The article should be reverted back to [5] edited by User:Denizz at 03:30, 25 April 2007. I have never been able to understand what the admins are trying to achieve by these cut-and-paste operations and now this actually did serious harm to the article. Please be more careful, the article suffers enough from the vandals. Atilim Gunes Baydin 15:01, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea how the FA star got removed - I did do a history dump last night, but it screwed up halfway through and I needed considerable help from Shresth91 to get it all fixed up. If you look at what I deleted, you'll see that all the lost revisions are completely useless, and I didn't remove anything that added useful content to the page. So I'm really, really not sure how the FA bit got lost. I'll revert back the version noted. *very confused* – Riana _ऋ 15:17, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Y. Can someone please check if it has been done correctly? – Riana _ऋ 15:19, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Looks fine to me, I thought it looked a bit different than before... Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:27, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I did wonder why there were so many dead images to remove from a featured article. My humblest apologies to all involved. Feel free to have a yell at me on my talk page. – Riana _ऋ 15:29, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Riana's last edit fixed the problem. The article seems fine to me now, and I apologize if I overreacted. The article represents the collective effort of dozens of users and many hours of serious work and it made me quite emotional to imagine it being carelessly copied and pasted between pages. It could also be a technical fault. Thanks for the quick fix. Atilim Gunes Baydin 17:11, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Explanation

Can anyone explain exactly why this vandal is repeatedly vandalising this page? I don't get what's so special about his page version. --Deskana (fry that thing!) 00:15, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

No easy answer. Obviously, an idée fixe propogated by a very disturbed and determined individual. El_C 00:22, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I think we should add something to the links at the top. Plenty of people could be looking for the animal.

This article is about the country known as "Turkey". For other uses of "Turkey", see Turkey (disambiguation). See also Turk.

Perhaps something like this would be better.

This article is about the country known as "Turkey". For the animal, see Turkey (bird). For other uses of "Turkey", see Turkey (disambiguation). See also Turk.

The Watchtower 02:13, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Y Done. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 08:33, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Can you also take a look at the proposed edit 3 above ? Thanks Deniz^T_C 15:40, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

i think the bird is unnecessary at the top since there is already a disambiguation and humiliating/misleading coz the name of the bird comes from the country. 85.97.12.110 22:36, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that the genocides of the Constantinopolitan Greeks, Pontic Greeks, Armenians and other non-Turkish muslims, as carried out by the "secular" Kemalists are a very important and historically validated point of view that should be included in the modern history of Turkey. It is a very divisive issue that deals directly with the self-perceived Turkish national identity and has played and will continue to play a very important role in politics in Turkey (eg. Article 301 (Turkish penal code)). I think it should be mentioned in the article.

Please before you post any comment on Wikipedia, do check it is correct. I can clearly see that you've failed to do that. There are no "real" references to any genocides that you've mentioned. The stress on the world real is becuase I believe, a real reference does not come from a politician but from a scientist. Thelorien 17:28, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

By the way, also, please do get used to the correct and official name of our beautiful city Istanbul. One might think that you still live in the Medieval Ages...Thelorien 17:30, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

All of this Genocide business is nothing but a theory and we can't accept it just because some politicians accept it to collect more votes. If you would know anything about the six arrow of Kemalism, you wouldn't say such things. Also, why didn't you sign your post? Here is mine, Deliogul 15:30, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I can accept that Kemal was great leader, I can accept the his intentions for Turkey where good from the point of view of the average Turk Muslim. What the average Turk cannot accept (including you as I can see) is that Turkey is a state that was founded in a land that belong and was inhabited by many different "millet's". Kemal, his predecessors and his successors saw that as a weakness and decided to solve it by ethnic cleansing. This is not a theory it is a historic fact, the only place in the world that this is not accepted is Turkey. The reason is simple and it is that people would need to revisit their history and identity and moral standing. That is a very brave stance that not many people are willing to take but I guarantee you that this is the only way forward. If you are looking for evidence here is some: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-44274/Armenia (note where it says the first genocide of the 20th century) this is britannica not "some politician". You can find a lot of evidence everywhere if you look (with the eyes open:) ). Finally the fact that there are many efforts to not present those facts is evidence that it is a significant issue for Turkey. People in Turkey are dying all the time, others go to jail for mentioning the truth, doesn't that make you suspicious? Since you talked about the six arrows you would know that one of them is populism... in other words you need to sustain a popular myth among the uneducated masses... I firmly believe that it needs to be mentioned. -- Kosta Servis 12:52 GMT+10 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Farm3r (talk • contribs) 02:58, 8 May 2007 (UTC).

Britannica is not a reliable source of information just like many others are not for one very simple reason: Those information did not exist till this very decade. Before, this "artificial" genocide could not harm the realation between the Armenians and Turks. Well, now it can because now Turkey is in great danger. Now, there are many people who "choose" to believe what you defende because this idea is also defended by the superpowers of Europe. One more thing. How reasonable do you believe France's acts are. They theoratically defend freedom of speech. Well, now they don't. They ban to "tell the truth" as you've mentioned. It is banned to express you idea. One last thing. I also live in Turkey but what you said about jails makes no sense. I have many Kurdish friends. I didn'T hear about that even from them. But you know what, you guys will not succeed. You'll never make me and my fellow citizens hate our Kurdish fellows. We are brothers. I do not expect you to understand brotherhood. Still, do RESPECT it.Thelorien 17:39, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Mustafa Kemal was a colonel (not even a pasha) fighting in Galipoli in 1915, what Kemalists? This is the first time for me to hear that the Istanbul Pogrom is referred to as a genocide, and certainly whether Menderes is Kemalist or not is a matter of debate, many people wouldn't say he is Kemalist. Pontic Greek genocide is not called so among the majority of scholars, as far as I know, and again what Kemalists? Article 301 bans insulting, it also mentions that Expressions of thought intended to criticize shall not constitute a crime. These matters are discussed enough in the main article. By the way, we should not make Wikipe-tan cry. This reminded me of something. Deniz^T_C 13:41, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

"You can find a lot of evidence everywhere if you look (with the eyes open:))"... Hımm, I'm a student at the Koç University, a university which uses the US system in all of its structure (and it has a considerably big library), so it is really hard to find a more "objective" place in Turkey to talk such things "freely". I'm here, talking to you as an educated brother of those "uneducated" masses. I can clearly say that you are totally subjective. Bad things happened during the fall of the Ottoman Empire but they were because of the status co and things didn't happen in the way the Western scholars (actually not all of them) think today. I talked about the six arrows not because your claims are connected with Mustafa Kemal or his ideals but the six arrows is the symbol of progress and rise in a newly formed country. We can discuss for hours about your every single claim (you wrote them just like simple things but social sciences are not that simple) and we still can't reach to a conclusion. This is why they are not facts but theories. They are not the law of gravity which is a pure example for the things that we call "facts". Deliogul 19:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Dear Farm3r, why dont you start looking at things from our perspective for only a short time. Our grandfathers were fighting with the rest of the world and there wasnt even any food to find. Then imagine a people, a people who you never discriminated, and brang to the highest statues of the Empire again founded by your grandfathers. There are millions of them and they start to join the rest of the world to fight you. You are completely weak not and will at least lose your country that you inhabited for thousand years in the end. what would your grandfathers do? give them flowers?? 85.97.12.25 00:10, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I am quite disgusted by the logical fallacy that 85.97.12.25 has given. The Turks had began the "allegded" Armenian genocide in 1915, before World War 1 ended. Look at Germany and Austria, did they start ethnicnally cleansing people in their countries as the war came bad? Besides, you don't deal with a rebellion by crushing women and children too. Their are rules in war no matter what and civilians were caught up and murdered. Remember, the Turks were a Steppe peoples who came to Anotalia by force and conquest and butchered the inhabitants of Constantinople for at least two days. This proud empire that your grand fathers built was built upon murder. Turley cannot deny the Genocide forever, and the more it does or the more it justifies the killing of Women and Children, the more barbaric it appears. It is well known that for centuries, Assyrians and Maronites have been heavily persecuted throughout the hundreds of years of Ottoman Rule. The Genocides of 1915 and after are no different. You may reply with all yoru anger that these are theories but blood has already soaked the lands of the Earth. There is no such extreme choice presented as teh one you are suggesting - giving flowers or massacring women and children or starving. However they died, they did so at the hands of the Young Turks. No you don't give flowers to your enemies User 85.97.12.25 BUT YOU DON'T GIVE THE FOLLOWING ORDERS: "In case of the smallest resistance, every soldier must perform his duty to murder these men in large numbers. The fatherland orders so. You must not neglect to perform your duty: every soldier is obliged to kill four to five Greeks for our country's grandeur. Every soldier is obliged to carry out the contents of this order."

- The order of Nourredin, Chief of the Turkish army in Smyrna (Izmir) for the slaughter of the indigenous Greek population, 1922 The destruction and genonice of Smyrma. Tourskin 01:54, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Citizens of Constantinople were killed by the Ottoman troops, a common thing for the Middle Ages for many sieges. You know, the citizens wouldn’t receive flowers if another army would manage to conquer the city instead of the Ottomans or Greeks wouldn't think a second to kill people if they would take Edirne etc. during the Middle Ages so be calm and don't judge the past with today’s understanding. Also, don't show it just like Turks killing people and remember what the Greek army did when they entered Anatolia back in 1919. Don't be subjective... Deliogul 20:15, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Everyone please stop using wrong names of our city Istanbul. It is wordwide accepted that, even by the Greeks although they refure to admit that, Istanbul is the official and correct (also modern) name. Thelorien 17:42, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I can cite hundreds of reliable and independent (and even opposing) sources which would reveal that most of the above claims (from both sides) have no basis whatsoever. However; I am too tired, too busy, and too lazy for doing this over and over. The information is out there; please take the time to go and look for it. There are thousands of websites, books, and other resources. Seriously; have many books have you read on these issues and these people? Have many original sources have you seen? How many people have you talked to? Have you heard of Artin Penik before? Did you know that Eleftherios Venizelos, the Greek president of the time, has nominated Ataturk for the nobel prize for establishing peace in the region, only a very short time after the war? The whole purpose of writing these articles in Wikipedia, expressing comments, and making these discussions should not be about being argumentative or making people believe in your version of the story. It should be about trying to discover the truth. And frankly, the most basic truth is that you cannot learn something if you believe that you already know it. These are very delicate issues, and we should not form opinions -yet alone make accusations- without acquiring extensive knowledge first. This applies to both sides, and other similar discussions. I am not claiming that our hands (or yours, or theirs, whatever) are perfectly clean. All I am trying to say is that this should not be about defending your interests, proving yourself right at all costs, or seeking for closure. This should not be a war, it should be a collaboration. --386-DX 22:50, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

On second review I agree with 386-DX, I was just putting an alternate view point in an equally inflammatory manner. Well the article should have a section questioning whether or not the Genocide occured but then again that would create endless debate so I must withdraw from this discussion without further suggestions. Sorry for any insults intended. You can deny the genocide, that is debatable but no one can deny that killing women and children is wrong. There is never a strict choice as to whether one should give flowers or death. Thats a logical fallacy because one is assuming that there is no middle way. That was what I found to be wrong. And yes, all empires and kingdoms are founded upon bloodshed, not just the Ottoman empire. Tourskin 00:41, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

386-DX, I don't want anybody to believe in "my version of history". It would be enough if they can be a little objective and really that's all. Tourskin, I didn't say that death is a good thing, I just said that it was "ordinary" in the past. Countless numbers of people died in America back in 1918 because of a simple illness like influenza. Today, we think that we are unlucky if we can't recover from it fast enough. So times are changing ;) Take care folks, Deliogul 09:28, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

The Economist: A reliable source ?

Given the praise given to The Economist on the newspaper's Wikipedia article (and the fact that all the world's leaders read and rely on it, blah blah blah), can it be quoted as a reliable enough source concerning facts about Turkey's economy, ec. growth, statistics etc. ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.1.219.142 (talk) 13:35, 7 May 2007 (UTC).

The Economist is a perfectly reliable source. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 13:42, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Not "perfect" but this is what we have. I don't see a problem to use it until a better source will be found. Deliogul 19:41, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

OK. I was going through some articles of the Economist lately, and fell on a report called: "The Economist Intelligence Unit's index of democracy", which describes Turkey as a "hybrid regime". It didn't even make it to the "flawed democracies" category (which includes Botswana, Mongolia and Papua New Guinea). Do you think that we should replace the "secular democracy" in the text with "hybrid regime" and add a link to the Economist's report ;-) ?

According to the Polity Index, Turkey's democracy score is 8/10 (not bad at all haha). This doesn't mean that Turkey doesn't have a "secular democracy" or it has a bad regime. The real problem is Papua New Guinea's score is 10/10 :) ... Actually, this is one thing but Turkey is 30 times more populous, nearly 40 times richer and has a way better HDI score. Deliogul 22:00, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I somehow noticed that, as it seems, just the facts that paint the country in an absolutely positive way get to stay int article (not even western European states, let alone the U.S. come away so smoothly :-) ). If the reality of a statement by the Economist is well accepted, if it is favorable for the country in question, but ignored when deemed uncomfortable, it only speaks about the objectivity of the article.

By the way, comparing to Papua New Guinea and coming out as a winner isn't that hard a task for most European countries. And the original question was about democracy, not population or income. Last time I checked, the way a democracy works is indifferent to the country's population, size or GDP. Saudi Arabia is an extremely wealty country, but can hardly be called democratic. And, according to the UN's Human Development Report, Turkey is surpassed (among others) by Libya, Albania, China and Fiji. Seems like there's a long way ahead of you.

The Economist defines Turkey as a "a secular democratic state" - see here http://www.economist.com/countries/Turkey/profile.cfm?folder=Profile-FactSheet

Which article are you talking about? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.19.70.59 (talk) 08:03, 14 May 2007 (UTC).

You have to ask the source of the article to the unsigned user who added the comment about it brother ;) Imho, I think that economy and population is important for the system of the country. It is a different thing to handle a million people and seventy million people. Also, if you are connected to the world with complex economic ties as a small open economy it is hard to change things. Maybe a CEO can make Papua New Guinea better off but you need many CEOs for the countless numbers of companies in Turkey and they can only take care of the economy, not politics ;) Libya and Fiji are crucial examples but I can't even dream of living in such countries. China is another story. It is completely normal to have such a high HDI scores in a socialist country. These days they are leaving behind their closed centralized economy and transforming it into a large open economy. Just wait until "free trade" will finish its job with China and leave the economic gap behind. Then we can discuss about the comparison between Chinese and Turkish people. Deliogul 16:50, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

TOURISM

Turkey is one of the top 10 world destinations in all tourism categories.why not adding this info into economy?

I LOVE INDIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IM FROM THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yay :) Please go to India related articles... Deliogul 14:35, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Young Turks and the Armenian Massacre

Why does the short history in this article not at least give a mention to the government of the Young Turks and the Armenian Genocide? These are very significant events in Turkish history. MarkThomas 12:18, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

You can be shocked when you hear it but the incident in 1915 is not accepted as a Genocide by many people. I guess there is not a healthy entry about the government of Enver Bey because there is not a consensus on what had happened during his time. Deliogul 15:06, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi Mark, the issue is mentioned in the "Foreign relations" section with links to the articles you've cited. This is a consensus reached after serious discussions during this article's FA candidacy to mention the issue in relation to Turkey's foreign relations, since it's a major problem in that area. Atilim Gunes Baydin 15:26, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

On the above points, (1) I am not shocked that many Turks dispute the Armenian Genocide, but that is irrelevant to Wikipedia, which seeks to tell the truth - 24 countries now formally recognise it as a genocide and no serious historian outside Turkey doubts its existence, so not to mention it is extreme-Turkish-nationalist POV of the worst sort and (2) it isn't just a "foreign relations" issue. The fact that many Turks disaprove of mentioning it does not mean that it does not have a place here on the main Wikipedia page for Turkey. This logic extends to other country pages where people within that country for nationalistic or racist reasons do not want a particularly unpleasant episode in their countries' history to be mentioned. It's basically censorship of Wikipedia. MarkThomas 17:58, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

The fact that "the events of 1915–17, in which actions by the Ottoman Young Turks led to the forced mass evacuation and related deaths of an estimated hundreds of thousands, up to 1.5 million, Armenians." is clearly mentioned in the article, with links to Young Turks and Armenian Genocide articles for detailed information. So, what censorship are you talking about? Do you just want this to be repeated more than once within the article? I did not say it's "just" foreign relations and I'm also one of the least nationalistic persons you can encounter on the planet. I personally don't like what Deliogul's been doing with discussing the events instead of the article's situation, and using this page as a forum, while it is not. But it's his choice and style. Because of your reply bordering on rudeness, I tend to believe you've come here with the prejudice of not finding a reference to the events in the article and thus shouting "censorship", a prejudice not realized. The info and the links are in place since months and this article passed a very serious and lengthy FA review process with many comments and discussions (accessible in the archives) involving editors of Armenian ethnicity. Atilim Gunes Baydin 20:49, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I should be clearer. My point is that it should be in the history section. The current context within foreign relations, together with the way in which it is described, makes it sound as if the whole thing is a misunderstanding by foreign powers about a much-misunderstood and best forgotten non-event in a minor part of Turkish history. Whereas the truth is that it is a central event in Turkish history. MarkThomas 21:31, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Mark, there are 200 countries in the world and only 24 of them recognized the things happened during the rule of Young Turks as a Genocide. Also, what is your degree of "seriousness". I guess you classify a historian as a great person when he/she accepts every cliché Western point of view and if he/she rejects the obviously true Western ideals, he/she is a loser. Turks didn't come out in the 20th century. They saw many important social and political events in their history in the last couple of thousands years so I also don't understand how you decide if an even is a "central" one or not. We are not talking about nationalism here. Actually I'm sure that people suffered a lot during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Our problem is objectivity. Take care, Deliogul 21:42, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Whatever. It's a lot more important than a "problem in foreign relations". However I agree with you that the Turks have had a long history of mass-murder, so it's not exactly a new thing. MarkThomas 21:50, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

The Armenian Deportations of 1915-1917 are already mentioned in the Ottoman Empire article.

The Republic of Turkey was established in 1923, following the Turkish War of Independence (all of present-day Turkey was under foreign occupation, apart from central Anatolia).

Therefore, an event which did not take place in the Republic of Turkey will normally not be mentioned in its article.

On the other hand, I hope you are showing the same sensitivity for the Belgium article. You know, King Leopold II of Belgium killed nearly 20 million Africans in Congo, but unfortunately it's not mentioned in the Belgium article.

7 million Gulags killed by Stalin also deserve to be mentioned in the Russia article.

Assuming that you're British, might I remind you that your Queen refused to apologize for the British atrocities during the Boer Wars - particularly during the Second Boer War in which 620,000 Africans died in your concentration camps. And this was only a "single" atrocity episode of the British Empire, as I have no time to mention all of them, such as those in India and elsewhere. Empires are built with bloodshed, not by distributing candies among the local indigenous people of the conquered lands. And the Brits were among the greatest imperialists in history, hence one of the last people who can teach humanity to others.

Don't get me wrong, but history has seen far worse than the deaths of 600,000 Armenians in WWI (according to independent resources like Arnold J. Toynbee. Turks claim 300,000 deaths while Armenians claim 1,500,000 deaths).

The Armenians, unlike the people of Congo, however, are doing a great job in advertising their plight (whereas the only concern for the descendants of the Congo Genocide is to find a piece of bread and save the day).

The ultimate goal (dream) is to set up a valid excuse for gaining land from Turkey (i.e. Eastern Anatolia)

Regards. Flavius Belisarius 12:24, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Huh!.Good deal.Must.^{T C} 13:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

MarkThomas, you showed that you are totally subjective. Yes, Turks didn't march to Anatolia with peace songs etc. but this is the same for every nation without exception. The West was burning people alive because they were "witches" during the Inquisitions. So don't play the defender of the civilization to us. Deliogul 11:29, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

All of the genocides mentioned above are mentioned in articles, see for example [[6]]. The Boer War concentration camp victims and other victims of British imperialism I agree should be described briefly in United Kingdom and I will raise it. All I am asking for here is a sensible mention of this very key episode in the main history section. I'm afraid I don't find the argument that Turkey is not the successor state of the Ottoman Empire very convincing, especially since pride in Ottoman history appears to be a cornerstone of Turkish xenophobic racist nationalism. But at least you're not alleging that the Armenians just invented the whole thing, as many in Turkey apparently believe. MarkThomas 15:54, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

So, you practically want the Armenian Deportations of 1915-1917 to be added to the Republic of Turkey (1923) article.

A bit like adding an Etruscan event in the Roman Empire article, or a Republic of Venice event to the Italy article.

I'm sorry, but it's not the proper thing to do.

By the way, the Normans didn't enter England in 1066 by singing songs either, just like the Turks didn't while entering Anatolia five years later.

And for the record, the Armenians were the 3rd largest ethnic group in Eastern Anatolia even before 1915 (after the Turks/Turkicized Kurds and Kurds) so they can't make any land claims in this area by spicing up a genocide story.

You can be sure that any hands which stretch towards our land will be repulsed accordingly.

As for the Ottoman Empire - yes, Turkey is indeed the only legal heir to the Ottoman Empire. Turkey maintained the last Ottoman flag, inherited the Ottoman institutions, and payed for the Ottoman debts until the late 1950s. We have nothing to feel ashamed about our history. Those who talk about the Armenian Deportations usually deny the fact that more than 700,000 Kurds and Turks were massacred in Eastern Anatolia (the bloodiest of them in the city of Van) by the advancing Russian Army and the Armenian "Dashnaksutyun" and "Henchak" terrorists who helped them. When you add the Turkish military casualties on fronts like Gallipoli and elsewhere, you'll see that we suffered a far worse death toll than the Armenians in WWI. The Armenians, however, deserve credit for doing a great job in inflating their figures (from the original 600,000 to the current 1,500,000) and advertising their plight, with the hope of setting an international approval for grabbing land from Turkey in the very first suitable occasion (such as a Turkish defeat in a future war). Eastern Anatolia was already promised to them in the Sevres Treaty (1920), that's why they are still crying like a baby who lost his lollypop. Regards. Flavius Belisarius 18:33, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

When aliens come to visit our planet, we're all going to be embarassed of Turkey. 168.122.85.101 21:18, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Goooood I like the spirit!!! --Gokhan 21:31, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I think we'll be more embarrassed of Wikipedia. --A.Garnet 23:04, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I deleted a uselessly long "research" by an unsigned contributor. Please put your work on internet and send us the link rather than destroying the talk page. Deliogul 09:05, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The only genocide that took place in the region was the brutal genocide of Azeris commited by armenians in Khojaly in 1992. Learn your facts, Mark —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vece131 (talk • contribs) 16:53, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

demographics edit?

It writes : "Other major ethnic groups include the Kurds, Circassians, Roma, Arabs and the three officially-recognized minorities (per the treaty of Lausanne) of Greeks, Armenians and Jews"

Firstly there is no officially-recognized minority(no minority has special rights) in Turkey. Also in the treaty of Lausanne, no minorities were officialy recongnized and all the previous rights given to these minorities were cancelled officially. The only rights minorities have right now are langugage related. The reference about the quoted part from the article, (that is [85]) does not say anything about any offical minorities. So that sentence is wrong and has no reference. It is a totaly subjective comment and therefore should be edited. --81.213.200.31 17:41, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

NPOV2?

(For some reason I am unable to edit NPOV? so this is a continuation of NPOV?) Lets take things from the beginning and find out what you guys disagree in. Is it: 1. Kemalists in Turkey have commited genocide against a number of ethnicities. 1a. not a gencide because it is a rumour. 1b. not a genocide because we have the right to desplace, kill, force to labour etc. people who oppose our national policy. 1c. it wasn't the Kemalists it was the ... (insert scapegoat here) who did it. 1d. Only the Armenians suffered genocide, not the Greeks or the Kurds. 2. There is sufficient mention of those events in the article. 3. It is irrelevant to the Republic of Turkey, because since the foundation of the Republic, Armenians, Greeks or Kurds have been left alone. Which is it? I am very interested in your opinions, and I am open to discussion and I might reconsider. Farm3r 22:46, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Young Turks are accused of committing Genocide, not Kemalists and yes, the Ottoman Empire always used harsh policies against rebels. Generally all nations in Anatolia faced such aggression by the Sublime Porte instead of Armenians until the 19th century. Times were changed so Armenians used the policies that they faced to shape their theories about Genocide. We have to clearly understand one thing, the empire forced Armenians to leave their homes, it used force on insisting fractions and many people died in the end this policy but this wasn't like the completely planned and organized Holocaust of Nazi Party. The goals were different and yes, if the empire was a bit capable at the time of these sad events, many Armenians wouldn't die because of hunger etc. Russians and British government were also in the business because they armed Armenian rebels and gave them promises which were impossible to be kept. So their ambition to save the day also shaped the situation. We can’t call an event a Genocide just because people died during that event. Take care folks, Deliogul 08:39, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I would be interested to see how long the revisionism on the Armenian genocide will last. Turkey has already threatened France to desist from officially recognising the Armenian genocide. Obviously its power to threaten any country that has a commemoration date for this atrocity is limited. It will probably end with Turkey being the only country to dispute this well documented event -- much in the same way that Turkey still recognises TRNC. Everyone demands a balanced representation of turkish history in this article but it seems all the black spots have been removed. --Tedblack 11:11, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I think there is no problem to talk about the Armenian casualties in the article as long as the records are objective and not propaganda oriented. We are talking about an empire here. House of Osman couldn't just watch Armenian rebels are getting what they want. It would be two times worse since the WWI was continuing during the events. You are partially correct about the standing of Turkey but you shouldn't forget one thing. Many times, Turkish scholars offered Armenian scholars to gather and talk these issues with documents from the two sides but Armenian side hasn't taken any positive move yet. I also have to add that the events of 1915 are nobody's business but Turks and Armenians. France, California etc. don't have right to talk about this issue at least at political level (of course academic studies from all around the world are kept separated from politics of such states). See you brother, Deliogul 15:11, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary, it is the duty of any signatory to the Genocide Convention to punish genocide. So the events of 1915 are all signatories business. (Where this argument breaks down is that there is not similar laws regarding denial of other genocides, except for the Holocaust). Fmark 13:17, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I think this argumentation should be developed under Ottoman Empire. Armenian efforts related with the Turkey is limited to bring the recognition of what they consider as a historical fact of the WWI. Issues related with the WWI (size of the casualties, who killed who...) should be under Ottoman Empire; simply that is the state and political system of its time. Talat Pasha is the Ottoman Empire's Pasha not the Republic of Turkey. Turkish people learn about the conditions of Ottoman Armenian citizens, but the Armenians do not learn about the conditions and difficulties of Ottoman Empire. I believe the hatred is so big, that they do not even want to use the word "Ottoman" in their language. Development of these issues under its time and period would create a better understanding of the issues involved, as all the related information will be under the same page. --Anglepush 23:55, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, I want to know why other countries support Turkey in the region if they are working next Armenia to punish Turkey. Just have a look at the natural gas and industrial routes between the Central Asia and Europe (For example, [7]). They are just skipping Armenia, whatever the extra cost is. So thinking that one day Turkey will be left alone in the international arena is just absurd when we look at the growing social and economic ties between Turkey and the other countries. On the other hand, Armenia slowly becomes the playground of the Armenian Diaspora and if this economic exclusion will continue, they will have even harder times. I also didn't see any backfire from the West to Azerbaijan when Azeris said that they want Nagorno-Karabakh and other Armenian occupied territories back (they added that if Armenians don't give up these lands, Azerbaijan will invade Armenia). All of these can look irrelevant but actually they show the latest scores. Deliogul 14:03, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Republican Era

Republican era part seems to be weak. 1960-1971-1980 should be better explained, especially the constitution of 1960. I will start working on the topic soon. 1980 is also crucial as it lies behind all the problems which Turkey is suffering from. But maybe Republican Era needs to be divided into sub-chapters in order to ensure readability. Like 1923-1945/1945-60/1960-1980/1980-2000. It is too comprehensive to put all under.--Z yTalk 21:32, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I offer 1923-1938/1938-1950/1950-1960/1960-1970/1970-1980/1980-present

Because the rule of Atatürk and İnönü are completely different in nature even if we call them simply the single party period. We must stop when İnönü lost the power in 1950 elections, because he maintained majority in 1946. After that, we can take military coups as turning points as you see in my offer. We also need titles for these time intervals. For example “1980- present: Liberalization” etc. Please share your ideas. Deliogul 10:38, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Well lets not to look for labels-titles at this stage cause it may bring about controversies..For example if we start liberalisation with 1980 it would be nothing else than ironic. I hope you get the point. I agree with the time intervals you suggest..--Z yTalk 09:57, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually it is related to what you understand from "liberalization" but you are right. People from different political orientations can start an edit war immediately :) I use it as an economic change in the country politics because with the rule of ANAP, Turkey left statism, one of the six arrows. Whatever, I will try to do my best about categorize the republican era, and possibly expanding it a little bit. Deliogul 12:21, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes I understood what you meant to do it may be right but only partially :) Especially when it is taken from a political perspective. Maybe you can add "economic" to the word liberalization? --Z yTalk 22:09, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I dont think the section should be divided into sub chapters, such changes usually lead to an ugly presentation and take the article away from its summary style. Rather, I believe one or two concise paragraphs can be added which provide a bit more detail on the late republican era, specifically the lack of 21st century coverage including EU accession negotiations and the like. --A.Garnet 14:17, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the EU accession story needs to be dealt with. I agree --Z yTalk 22:09, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Please consider making any additions to the section's main article (History of the Republic of Turkey) and try to keep this article as a brief and concise summary, as required by featured article guidelines. Atilim Gunes Baydin 15:16, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The use of the Turkish "dotted I" (İ) in Turkey-related articles

As a Turk I understand why some Turkish users prefer using the Turkish dotted capital İ in Turkey-related texts such as "İstanbul" and "İzmir", etc. Many Spanish and French city names in the English Wikipedia also use such national letters.

However, such a use might be misleading, especially for those who don't know that the Turkish "İ" is practically the English "I", while the Turkish "I" is actually equal to the sound of ë.

Those who don't know this might think that the "İ" represents a "long I".

I've always wondered why my Italian friends say "Iiiiistanbul" instead of "Istanbul", perhaps thinking that the "İ" in front signifies the correct way that it should be spelled.

If I were not Turkish, I would also think the same way.

Therefore, it's perhaps better to avoid the Turkish "İ" unless it's really necessary.

Flavius Belisarius 07:09, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's really necessary. No average English reader knows how to read the non standard Latin letters in A Coruña, Münster, Antonín Dvořák, Franz Josef Strauß (and many other articles, as you have noted), and precisely for this reason, the pronunciation of these are presented at the beginning with IPA letters and a sound recording in some. Turkish language and the Turkish alphabet deserves the same respect shown to German, French, Spanish, Czech alphabets. Atilim Gunes Baydin 10:19, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

money

i doubt the country makes 350,000 billion a year.

If you are referring to Nominal GDP, it already surpassed $410 billion by the end of March 2007 (2007 Q1)

http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/ekonomi/6820581.asp?rdr=1

The exact figure is $410,823,000,000 in 2007 Q1 according to the Turkish State Statistics Institute.

GDP-PPP is getting close to $700 billion at the moment. Flavius Belisarius 21:53, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Yep, Turkey is one of the 20 biggest economic powers in the world. Our big problems are HDI and GDP per capita. See you, Deliogul 09:01, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that GDP per capita is even close to that number. It looks like an AKP propaganda. Deliogul 09:06, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

edit:I understand the source of my problem. Nominal values are at the bottom of PPP values. It confused me for half an hour so it can confuse others too. AKP has nothing to do about a problem maybe for the first time in their history :D Deliogul 10:21, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Rankings

Why dont we add an international rankings section like Ukraine or Sweden to the article?