Turkey » History

Recent History

The Multi-Party period in Turkey started by the establishment of National Development Party (Milli Kalkinma Partisi), founded by Nuri Demirag, in 1945. Later on, the Democrat party was established the next year, and was elected in 1950. Very popular at first, the government, led by prime minister Adnan Menderes, relaxed the restrictions on Islam and presided over a booming economy. In the later half of the decade, however, the government introduced censorship laws limiting dissent, while it became plagued by high inflation and a massive debt. Ankara also attempted to use the army to suppress its political rivals.

Former Turkish prime minister Bulent Ecevit recalled he had learned of the existence of Counter-Guerrilla, the Turkish "stay-behind" armies for the first time in 1974. The 1995 elections brought a short-lived coalition between Yilmaz's Motherland Party and The True Path Party, now with Tansu Ciller at the helm. Ciller then turned to the Welfare Party (RP), headed by Necmettin Erbakan, the former leader of the National Salvation Party, allowing Erbakan to enter the Prime Ministry.

The DSP won big in the 1999 elections on the strength of the calan abduction. Second place went, surprisingly, to the Nationalist Action Party (MHP). These two parties, alongside Yilmaz's ANAP formed a government. The popular perception was that it would fail; these were, after all, the inheritors of the two groups that were fighting so violently in the streets during the 1970s. However, the government was somewhat effective, if not harmonious, bringing about much-needed economic reform, instituting human rights legislation, and bringing Turkey ever closer to the European Union (EU).

A series of economic shocks led to new elections in 2002, bringing into power the conservative Justice and Development Party led by the former mayor of Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey is currently in accession talks with the European Union.

Longer Historical Perspective

Turkey is a successor state of the Ottoman Empire, a multi-ethnic empire consolidated by gradual conquest during medieval and early modern times (1300-1700). The pre-Ottoman history of Turkey may deal with the territories that remained under Ottoman rule until the collapse of the Empire, Thrace and Anatolia, or with the origin of the dominant ethnicity of the Empire, the Oghuz Turks, which emerged from Central Asia from the 9th century. The modern Republic of Turkey is a nation-state, the product of the rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish National Movement, to the point of exclusion, or even extermination of non-Turkish ethnicities from its territories (such as the Armenians or Kurds). The history of Turkey in this sense begins in 1908 with the Young Turk Revolution and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

The Turkish War of Independence (Turkish: Kurtulus Savasi) is part of the History of Turkey that spans from the occupation by the Allies following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, to the liberation and declaration of the Republic of Turkey on October 29, 1923. Some historians prefer the name "Turkish War of Liberation", since Turkey never lost its independence but portions of the Turkish heartland were occupied by Entente powers for a short period.