Background: Modern Turkey was founded in 1923 from the Anatolian remnants of the defeated Ottoman Empire by national hero Mustafa KEMAL, who was later honored with the title Ataturk, or "Father of the Turks." Under his authoritarian leadership, the country adopted wide-ranging social, legal, and political reforms. After a period of one-party rule, an experiment with multi-party politics led to the 1950 election victory of the opposition Democratic Party and the peaceful transfer of power. Since then, Turkish political parties have multiplied, but democracy has been fractured by periods of instability and intermittent military coups (1960, 1971, 1980), which in each case eventually resulted in a return of political power to civilians. In 1997, the military again helped engineer the ouster - popularly dubbed a "post-modern coup" - of the then Islamic-oriented government. Turkey intervened militarily on Cyprus in 1974 to prevent a Greek takeover of the island and has since acted as patron state to the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus," which only Turkey recognizes. A separatist insurgency begun in 1984 by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) - now known as the People's Congress of Kurdistan or Kongra-Gel (KGK) - has dominated the Turkish military's attention and claimed more than 30,000 lives, but after the capture of the group's leader in 1999, the insurgents largely withdrew from Turkey, mainly to northern Iraq. In 2004, KGK announced an end to its ceasefire and attacks attributed to the KGK increased. Turkey joined the UN in 1945 and in 1952 it became a member of NATO. In 1964, Turkey became an associate member of the European Community; over the past decade, it has undertaken many reforms to strengthen its democracy and economy, enabling it to begin accession membership talks with the European Union.
May 12th 2008Middle East » Turkey » Black Sea » Trabzon Am begınnıng to realıse that ı may have to scratch travel wrıter from my lıst of possıble career choıces and feelıng horrıfıcally guılty for ... [full story]
May 5th 2008Middle East » Turkey » Black Sea » Trabzon The bustling border crossing at Hopa was nothing like the sleepy, rural, countryside post I had crossed to enter Georgia two days earlier. Tractor trailers, vacationing Russians, and a much more offi ... 14 photos[full story]
April 15th 2008Middle East » Turkey » Black Sea » Safranbolu So thaaaaaaaaaat's what all the hype is about. Just 3 hours north of Ankara is the lovely town of Safranbolu, filled with cobblestone alleyways, well-preserved Ottoman-era houses, and more charm than ... 12 photos[full story]
April 11th 2008Middle East » Turkey » Black Sea » Trabzon On se disait que ça faisait longtemps que nous n'avions pas vu quelque chose d'exceptionnelle. On ne veut pas dire que la Syrie et la Chypre n'étaient pas jolies mais plutot que ça faisait un petit bo ... 23 photos[full story]
March 10th 2008Middle East » Turkey » Black Sea 6am wake up
ugh, I just knew this would be the start to a beautiful day.
But it was. It's been in the 50s as of late, so a sunny day at the beach turned out to be fun but pretty far from relaxing ... [full story]
December 7th 2007Middle East » Turkey » Black Sea » Barhal The Pontic Mountains (Turkish Doğu Karadeniz Dağları) are a range of mountains in northern Turkey, whose eastern end extends into southeastern Georgia. The range runs roughly east-west, ... 41 photos[full story]
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