VI.

History

The first major civilization in Anatolia was that of the Hittites, about 1900 to 1200 bc, which originated in the central plateau. It was destroyed by invaders known as the Sea Peoples, who swept over Asia Minor and Syria towards the end of the 12th century bc. The destruction of the western Anatolian city of Troy, an event celebrated in ancient Greek legends, probably occurred during these invasions.

One group of the Sea Peoples, the Phrygians, established a kingdom that became the dominant Anatolian power in the 9th and 8th centuries bc. During this period the Greeks founded Miletus, Ephesus, and Priene and a number of other cities in Ionia, an area along the Aegean coast. About 700 bc the Phrygian kingdom was overrun and destroyed by the Cimmerians, a nomadic people who thereafter lived in western Asia Minor. In the 7th century bc the Lydians also appeared near the Aegean coast, where they founded a kingdom, the capital of which was Sardis. It was overthrown by the Persians under Cyrus the Great in 546 bc.

A.

The Persian and Byzantine Periods

From the mid-6th century to 333 bc most of Asia Minor, including Anatolia, belonged to the Persian Empire, although the Greek cities frequently enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy. In the 4th century bc Persian power declined, and after 333 bc it was supplanted by the Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great. In the 2nd and 1st centuries bc, Asia Minor was gradually conquered by the Romans.

After the division of the Roman Empire in the 4th century ad, Asia Minor became part of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine Empire, the capital of which was Constantinople or Byzantium (now İstanbul), located on the European side of the Bosporus, just across from the west coast of Anatolia. During the 11th century Asia Minor was invaded by the Seljuk Turks. In 1071 they routed the Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert; during the 12th century they ravaged much of eastern and central Anatolia. Although at this time the primary objective of the Seljuks was not to attack the Byzantines but to eliminate the threat of heterodox Shiite Islam posed by the Fatimids of Egypt, some members of the Seljuk dynasty followed the nomads to take advantage of their success. They established the sultanate of Rum (with its capital at Konya), which ruled central Anatolia in the 12th and 13th centuries.

Most of the nomads who had made the initial Seljuk victories possible were soon pushed to the west of Anatolia, where frontier colonies were maintained against the last Byzantine defences. Although the sultanate of Rum imitated the Seljuk Empire of Baghdad, the presence within its boundaries of large numbers of Christians and its superimposition of Islam on top of a living Christian tradition produced a milieu considerably different to that of other Islamic states. It provided the basis for the unique Ottoman systems of government and society that began to emerge in the 14th century.

The Seljuks of Baghdad and Konya were soon overwhelmed by the invasion of the Mongols under Genghis Khan, culminating in the capture and sack of Baghdad in 1258. In Anatolia, the Turkoman nomads used the resulting anarchy to form a series of principalities, nominally under the suzerainty of Rum, which in turn was dominated by the Mongols. These principalities maintained themselves through their raids against one another and against the last Byzantine nobles, who held out in western Anatolia.

B.

Rise of the Ottomans

The Ottomans emerged in history as leaders of those Turkomans who fought the Byzantines in north-western Anatolia. The location enabled Osman, founder of the Ottoman dynasty, to take the fullest advantage of Byzantine weakness and secure booty by raids into Christian territory. This situation lured into his service thousands of Turkoman nomads and also many Arabs and Iranians fleeing from the Mongols. Osman’s conquests in Anatolia were crowned with the capture (1326) of the provincial capital Bursa by his son Orhan, which gave the Ottomans control over the Byzantine administrative, financial, and military systems in the area. Thus began the Ottoman tradition to expand by force only at the expense of the declining Christian states to the west, but not against the Turkoman principalities to the east. The peaceful acquisition of Turkoman lands by purchase, marriage, and the sowing of dissension within the ruling dynasties was, however, acceptable, and the Ottomans thus took over large territories in western Anatolia.

B.1.

European Raids

Ottoman expansion into Europe began late in Orhan’s reign. Ottoman soldiers were hired as mercenaries by leading Byzantines, including John VI Cantacuzene, who was thus able to secure himself the Byzantine throne (1347). In return, Ottoman soldiers were allowed to raid Byzantine territories in Thrace and Macedonia, and the emperor’s daughter was given to Orhan in marriage. The Ottoman raiders soon began to camp in the Gallipoli Peninsula and to mount continuous raids on the remaining Byzantine possessions in Europe.

The transformation of the Ottoman principality into a vast empire, covering south-eastern Europe, Anatolia, and the Arab world, was accomplished in three major campaigns between the 14th and 16th centuries. The early Ottoman Empire, stretching from the Danube to the Euphrates, was created by Murad I and Bayazid I. Murad concentrated mainly on Europe in a series of campaigns that extended as far as the Danube, culminating in the Battle of Kosovo (1389), in which an allied Serbian, Bosnian, and Bulgarian army was routed. Murad himself was killed, but his son Bayazid completed the victory. During the next decade Bayazid broke with tradition and conquered most of the Anatolian Turkoman principalities, thus bringing the early empire to its peak.

B.2.

Defeat and Restoration

This conquest, however, greatly weakened the basic supports of the Ottoman state. The Muslim elements and the Turkish notables, who had helped the Ottomans achieve their victories in Europe, opposed this subjugation of Turks and Muslims. They refused to participate in the campaign into Anatolia, which as a consequence was carried out largely by Christians in Bayazid’s service. At the same time, the emergence of the Ottomans as a major power in Anatolia threatened the rear flanks of Tamerlane, the Mongol conqueror who had recently taken over much of Iran and Central Asia. Tamerlane briefly invaded Anatolia in 1402, defeating and capturing Bayazid, who died a prisoner the following year.

Muhammad I, Bayazid’s youngest son, restored the Ottoman Empire by defeating and killing his brothers, one after another, and, from 1402 to 1413, by fighting off Christian and Turkoman vassals in Europe and Anatolia. His son, Murad II, reasserted Ottoman dominion in Europe as far as the Danube by defeating the various Christian princes of Serbia and Bulgaria and replacing them with direct Ottoman administration. This policy was continued during the reign of Muhammad II, who defeated the last remaining Christian princes south of the Danube.

His conquests culminated in the capture of Constantinople (1453) and the subjugation of Anatolia as far as the Euphrates. Bayazid II ended the policy of conquests in order to consolidate the lands that had been occupied during previous reigns. Unlike him, Selim I used the territorial and administrative base of power left to him to defeat and destroy the Mameluke Empire (1517) and to conquer Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Arabia, which he achieved in a single campaign, thus incorporating into the Ottoman Empire the heartland of the old Islamic caliphates.

Suleiman I the Magnificent completed the Ottoman expansion by moving across the Danube to conquer Hungary and besiege Vienna (1529). In the east he conquered the remainder of Anatolia and the old Abbasid and Seljuk centre in Iraq.

C.

Ottoman State and Society

With the conquest of Suleiman I, the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire reached its peak, and the social, administrative, and governmental institutions that had been evolving since the 14th century were formalized in a series of codes that remained the basis of Ottoman law until the end of the empire. As revealed in these codes, society was divided into a ruling class of Ottomans and a subject class of rayas, of the sultan’s “protected flock”.

The basic attribute of the ruler’s authority was the right to exploit the wealth of the empire. The sultan divided this wealth into administrative and financial units and assigned them to his agents, along with the authority to collect the accruing revenues. These agents were considered “slaves” of the sultan, but because slaves in Middle Eastern society acquired the social status of their master, they actually constituted the ruling class of Ottoman society. Their authority, however, was limited to functions involved with exploiting the empire’s wealth and with expanding and defending the state organized to accomplish this.

To carry out these functions, the ruling class organized itself into four basic “institutions”: the Imperial Institution, including the Inner, or Palace, Service, which cared for the sultans, and the Outer Service, which made sure that the system worked; the Military Institution, which kept order through various military corps, of which the most important were the Janissaries and the cavalry; the Scribal Institution, which supported the sultan and his ruling class by assessing and collecting taxes that exploited the wealth of the empire; and the Religious, or Cultural, Institution, which gave religious leadership to the sultan’s Muslim subjects and was in charge of education and justice. The ruling class was made up of two rival elements: Muslim Turkomans, Arabs, and Iranians, who together constituted the Turkish aristocracy that dominated the Ottoman system during the 14th and 15th centuries; and Christian prisoners and slaves, recruited, converted, and educated through the famous devshirme system. Beginning in the mid-16th century, the latter group took over and dominated the ruling class.

All other social functions were left to the subject class to carry out as they wished, primarily through religiously oriented communities called millets, and through economic and social guilds. The Jewish, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Gregorian, and Muslim millets, later joined by Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Bulgarian Orthodox millets, were allowed religious and cultural autonomy.

D.

Decline and Traditional Reform

The decline of the Ottoman Empire began late in the reign of Suleiman I and continued until the end of World War I. Official reaction to this decline came in phases—that of Traditional Reform (1566-1807), when efforts were made to restore the old institutions, and that of Modern Reform (1807-1918), when the old ways were abandoned and new ones, imported from the West, were adopted.

D.1.

Nature of the Decline

Until the mid-16th century the sultans had controlled and used both the old Turkish aristocracy and the devshirme Christian converts and their descendants by carefully balancing and playing them off against each other. During Suleiman’s reign, however, the devshirme achieved control, drove the Turkish aristocracy out of the ruling class, and then began to exploit the state for their own advantage. At the same time, the empire began to suffer from overpopulation, resulting from the peace and security that had been established. A high birth rate eventually resulted in both urban and rural unemployment, owing to the limited availability of land and to highly restrictive economic policies enforced by the urban guilds. Without jobs, the oppressed masses formed robber bands that infested town and country alike.

With incompetent, dishonest, and inefficient government by the ruling class, lands fell out of cultivation, the empire suffered from endemic famine and disease, and entire districts—sometimes entire provinces—fell under the control of provincial notables. The subject class suffered a good deal but was protected from the worst effects of the anarchy by the millets and guilds, which formed a substratum of society, taking over the functions of government when needed. At the same time, Europe was developing nation-states that were far more powerful than those that had faced the Ottoman Empire in earlier centuries.

Ottoman reaction to the decline was tempered for several reasons. First, Europe was so involved in its own affairs that for at least a century it was unaware of the Ottoman situation and made no effort to take advantage of it. Second, most members of the ruling class benefited from the chaos, for it enabled them to retain huge profits for themselves. Finally, the Ottomans in their isolation were unaware of the changes that had made Europe far more powerful than before. They assumed that the Islamic world was still more advanced than Christian Europe. Under these conditions, the ruling class saw no need for change or reform.

After a time, however, Europe began to realize the extent of internal Ottoman decay and to take advantage of it. In 1571 the Holy League fleet, led by John of Austria, moved into the eastern Mediterranean and destroyed the Ottoman fleet in the Battle of Lepanto. The victory was counteracted by the building of an entirely new fleet, and the Ottomans resumed their naval control in the Mediterranean for another half-century. Nonetheless, the impression began to spread in Europe that the Ottomans were not invincible. War with Austria followed (1593-1606), leading the sultan to recognize the Holy Roman Emperor as an equal and to give up his insistence on annual Austrian payments of tribute—a fact that further opened Europe’s eyes to Ottoman decline.

D.2.

Reforms and Losses

Only when powerful foreign attacks threatened the empire, on which its privileges and wealth depended, did the ruling class accept some sort of reform. In 1623, Shah Abbas I of Iran conquered Baghdad and eastern Iraq and stirred up a series of Turkoman revolts in eastern Anatolia. In response, Sultan Murad IV restored conservatism and efficiency to the ruling class and the army. By ruthlessly executing thousands found guilty of violating Islamic law and tradition, he began the so-called Traditional Reforms. The reforms were successful enough for the Ottoman army to drive the Iranians out of Iraq and to conquer the Caucasus (1638). Murad’s successor, however, allowed the previous decay to resume.

A war with Venice, which culminated in a Venetian naval attack on the Dardanelles, then led to the rise of the Köprülü dynasty of grand viziers, which once again restored the old institutions with the same methods used by Murad VI. Eradication of the decay and restoration of Ottoman power stimulated the last Köprülü grand vizier, Kara Mustafa Pasha, to make a new attempt to conquer Vienna in 1683. After a short siege, however, the Ottoman army completely fell apart, making it possible for a new European Holy League to conquer integral parts of the empire. The losses of Hungary and Transylvania to Austria; Dalmatia, the Peloponnese, and important Aegean islands to Venice; Podolya and the southern Ukraine to Poland; and Azov and the lands north of the Black Sea to Russia were confirmed in the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699).

D.3.

Some Gains and More Losses

Even at this time, however, the Ottoman Empire had enough internal strength to pull itself together, correct the worse abuses, and, by adopting modern European weapons and tactics, even regain some of its losses. In 1711 the Ottomans defeated a campaign mounted by Tsar Peter the Great, forcing him to return the territories lost at Karlowitz, but a war with Venice and Austria (1714-1717) led to the loss of Belgrade and northern Serbia.

This stimulated a new reform era called the Tulip Period (1715-1730), in which the Ottoman army was reorganized and modernized in order to spare the empire further losses. This effort was continued during the reign (1730-1754) of Mahmud I, when the French artillery officer Claude de Bonneval, called Humbaracı Ahmed Pasha, created a new European-style artillery corps. As a result, in the war that broke out with Russia and Austria (1736-1739), the Ottomans were able to regain most of their previous losses in northern Serbia and the northern shores of the Black Sea.

A period of peace with Europe followed, largely because of European involvement in other wars; this lull, however, once again convinced the ruling class that the danger was past, and the old abuses and decay soon returned. Consequently, in two disastrous wars between 1768 and 1792 (see Russo-Turkish Wars), the Ottoman army crumbled, major new territorial losses were suffered, and the empire itself seemed near total collapse.

E.

Modern Reform

During the 19th century, the continuous danger of foreign conquest was aggravated by the rise of nationalism. One after another, the non-Turkish peoples of the empire sought and obtained independence. Greece was the first country to do so, in 1829. This was followed by revolts of the Serbs, Bulgars, and Albanians, as well as of the Armenians of eastern Anatolia. Ottoman survival was due less to the empire’s own strength than to European disagreement over how to divide the spoils—a part of history often referred to as the Eastern Question.

E.1.

Tanzimat

The Ottoman ruling class responded to these crises with a concentrated effort at reform; it replaced the old ways with new ones imported from the West in a reform movement (1839-1876) known as the Tanzimat (Turkish, “reorganization”). Planned and begun under Mahmud II, and culminating in the highly autocratic reign (1876-1909) of Abdulhamid II, the Tanzimat modernized the Ottoman Empire by extending the scope of government into all aspects of life, overshadowing the autonomous millets and guilds that previously had monopolized most governmental functions.

A modern administration and army were created along Western lines, with highly centralized bureaucracies. Secular systems of education and justice were created to provide personnel for the new administration. Large-scale programmes of public works modernized the physical structure of the empire, with new cities, roads, railways, and telegraph lines. New agricultural methods also contributed to Ottoman revitalization. Another reaction was to suppress minorities. This policy resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians between 1894 and 1923. (The Turkish government disputes that the Ottoman policy towards the Armenians was genocidal, arguing that most of the Armenian deaths resulted from armed conflict, disease, and famine during the chaos of World War I.)

E.2.

European Interests

Severe economic, financial, political, and diplomatic problems emerged, however, to undermine the Tanzimat reforms. The newly industrialized European states preferred to keep the Ottoman Empire as a source of cheap raw materials and a market for their manufactured goods. Using the Capitulations—treaties by which, since the 16th century, the sultans had allowed Europeans to live and work in the empire according to their own laws and under their own consuls—the Europeans were able to prevent the Ottomans from restricting foreign imports and thus kept them from protecting their own nascent industries. Because the Ottomans depended largely on foreign industrialists for capital and know-how, the Europeans could also undermine and destroy what industrial efforts were made. The empire borrowed so heavily from European banks that by the last years of the Tanzimat, more than half of its total revenues were consumed by interest charges. Moreover, the new and modern bureaucracy soon began to use its authority to misrule the subjects.

A group of intellectuals and liberals known as the Young Ottomans for a Constitution then began to demand a limit to the power of the ruling class and the bureaucracy and a parliament to enforce the rights of the people. Severely suppressed by the Tanzimat leaders, the Young Ottomans fled abroad, publishing their demands in books and pamphlets that were sent into the empire through the foreign post offices, which, protected by the Capitulations, were free of Ottoman government control. At the same time, the newly independent Balkan states began large-scale agitation to gain control of Macedonia, where the population was almost evenly divided between Muslims and Christians. In Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria, societies were organized that sought to enforce their claims by terrorist campaigns, severely straining the ability of the Ottoman state to keep order. Finally, the deaths of the principal Tanzimat leaders about 1870 left the autocratic structure of government they had created in the hands of dishonest politicians, who resumed the corruption and misrule that had prompted the Tanzimat in the first place.

E.3.

Coup and Constitution

At this point a new international crisis, threats of a war with Russia and Austria, and the constitutionalist aspirations of a group of reformers led to the overthrow of Sultan Abd al-Aziz. After a very short reign, Murad V was succeeded by Sultan Abdulhamid II. He promulgated a constitution and accepted a representative parliament, which convened in 1877, but was soon suspended because of war with Russia. In cooperation with Britain, Abdulhamid managed to solve the international crisis at the Congress of Berlin (1878). He then moved to restore the Tanzimat reforms, which by the end of the century had created a relatively modern and prosperous state. In the face of continued European dangers, however, Abdulhamid suspended the parliament and installed a highly autocratic government (1878). Governmental power was taken from the bureaucracy and centred in the palace, and all opposition was suppressed.

Abdulhamid restored financial stability and advanced the economy, but the political repression ultimately led to the rise of a new liberal opposition movement, the Young Turks, who forced him to restore the constitution and parliament in what is known as the Young Turk Revolution (1908). The success of the new constitutional regime was immediately undermined, however, by a series of disasters: Austria annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria annexed East Rumelia, and terrorism in Macedonia and eastern Anatolia resumed with renewed fury.

Abdulhamid and those around him in the palace blamed these disasters on the new constitutional regime and attempted a counter-revolution in April 1909. Parliament was dissolved and many members arrested, but the army in Macedonia, dominated by Young Turks, marched back to İstanbul, defeated the counter-revolution, and dethroned the sultan. Subsequent Ottoman sultans reigned but did not rule.

E.4.

The Young Turk Years

The early years of the Young Turk era (1908-1918) were the most democratic period of Ottoman history. The constitution and parliament were restored, and parties were formed to contest for leadership. The strongest among them was the Union and Progress Party, founded and supported by the Young Turks, but many others also flourished.

The Young Turk reforms, which reached all areas of life, culminated in the secularization of the Muslim schools and courts and the introduction of women’s rights during World War I. The modern state apparatus of the Tanzimat was democratized, industry and agriculture were developed, and modern budgetary techniques were introduced. The First Balkan War, however, led to a revolt within the Committee of Union and Progress and an attempt to take over the government by a triumvirate led by Enver Pasha. The triumvirate’s domination was assured when it took advantage of dissension among the victorious Balkan states to regain Edirne (Adrianople) in the Second Balkan War.

E.5.

World War I

At first, the triumvirate tried to avoid involvement in World War I, but German offers to help regain lost provinces, British confiscation of Turkish warships being constructed in England, and manipulation by Enver Pasha led to an alliance with the Central Powers and Turkish entry into the war in 1914. The Turkish armed forces performed well during the Gallipoli campaign and drove back and captured an entire British expeditionary force at Kut-al-Imara in Iraq.

A campaign across the Sinai Peninsula with the aim of capturing the Suez Canal and Egypt was unsuccessful, however, and led to the British organization of an Arab revolt in the Arabian Peninsula. With Arab help, a British force from Egypt then invaded Syria and had reached southern Anatolia by the time the war ended.

A campaign led by Enver Pasha into the Caucasus at the start of the war was defeated less by the Russians than by poor organization and revolts in the eastern provinces. Thereafter the Russians invaded eastern and central Anatolia at will (1915-1916), until their campaign was brought to an end in 1917 by the Russian Revolution. The destructive effects of these foreign invasions were compounded by internal revolts, famine, starvation, and disease. Some 6 million people of all religions—one quarter of the entire population—died or were killed, and the economy was devastated.

E.6.

Occupation and War of Independence

In the wake of surrender, the Turkish government was placed under the authority of the Allied occupation powers led by the British. The Paris Peace Conference prepared to impose a settlement by which not only the Balkan and Arab provinces would be ceded, but areas occupied by predominantly Turkish populations in eastern and southern Anatolia would be placed under foreign or minority control. A large Greek army captured İzmir (1922) and invaded south-western Anatolia, but massacres of the Turkish population led the Allies to withdraw their support from the Greeks. In reaction to the proposed peace settlement and to the Greek invasion, the Turkish nationalist movement rose in Anatolia under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

During the Turkish War of Independence (1918-1923) Atatürk successfully resisted the Allied terms; drove out the Greeks and the British, French, and Italian occupation forces; and imposed a settlement, embodied in the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), by which the Turkish areas of eastern Thrace and Anatolia were left to form their own state. Following this victory, a Turkish republic was proclaimed, with its capital in Ankara, and the İstanbul government of the sultan simply ceased to exist (1923).

F.

Turkish Republic

Led by Atatürk during its first 15 years, the Turkish republic was founded on six basic principles incorporated into the constitution: republicanism (based on the premise that sovereignty belongs to the people); Turkish nationalism (emphasizing the glories of the Turkish past and the need for the Turks to build their own state according to modern principles and without foreign intervention); populism (the idea that the people ruled through the Turkish Grand National Assembly, with all economic and social interests represented); secularism (dictating complete separation between the Muslim religious establishment and the state); statism (meaning state intervention in major sectors of the economy and its control of the rest, so as to assure rapid economic development); and revolutionism (dictating that all these changes be instituted at once and in full so that Turkish society could develop as rapidly as possible).

The Atatürk years were ones of great progress, both economic and social. Turkey avoided tendencies towards revenge, joining in close diplomatic relations with its former Balkan territories and at the same time emphasizing its secularist policy by avoiding alliances with its Muslim neighbours to the east.

F.1.

From Neutrality to Western Alliance

Atatürk was succeeded as president by his close associate İsmet İnönü, who continued his internal policies. Remembering the terrible experience of World War I, İnönü kept Turkey neutral during almost all of World War II; not until February 1945 did Turkey declare war on Germany and Japan. Following the war, the Soviet Union attempted to include Turkey within its sphere of influence, demanding control of Turkey’s eastern provinces and the straits. In response, Turkey accepted large-scale aid offered by President Truman and entered a close military and economic alliance with the United States; in 1952 it became a full member of the NATO.

At the same time, İnönü democratized the regime and allowed the introduction of opposition parties. This led to the triumph in 1950 of the Democratic Party, advocating more private and individual enterprise than had been permitted by the statist policies of Atatürk’s Republican People’s Party, which now went into opposition.

Led by President Celâl Bayar, together with Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and Foreign Minister Fuat Köprülü, the Democratic Party controlled the Turkish government for a decade (1950-1960). The Turkish economy expanded rapidly during this time as a result of the new economic liberalism and the large-scale foreign assistance, principally from the United States, that followed Turkey’s entry into the Western alliance. Ultimately, however, too rapid economic growth and poor management led to severe economic and social strains and increasing political discontent voiced by the Republican People’s Party, which the Democrats began to repress.

In 1960 an army coup finally overthrew the government, hanged Menderes and a few associates on charges of corruption in 1961, and installed a new constitution based on modern economic and social principles, with provisions to prevent the kind of repression the Democrats had inflicted.

F.2.

Slide Towards Chaos

After the second constitution was adopted in 1961, Turkey was governed by a series of ever weaker governments. The rapid economic development of the 1950s, combined with liberal legislation freeing workers and others to unite, engendered a series of organizations that assumed power and authority formerly held by the government, the legislature, and the political parties. At the same time, an increasingly active leftist movement spawned violent extremist groups, which engaged in terrorist acts to achieve their ends. These in turn led to the formation of right-wing terrorist bands, leaving the country polarized and both sides fomenting violence.

The labour organizations that sprang up after 1950 coalesced into two major labour confederations, Turkish Labour (Turk IŠ), representing the rightist and more moderate groups, and the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions, incorporating the Communist and other leftist groups. By the mid-1960s the influence of these organizations spread to all areas of Turkish life.

Political affairs also were polarized in two major parties, the Republican People’s Party, which under the leadership of Bülent Ecevit tended to incorporate social-democratic ideas, and the Justice Party, led by Süleyman Demirel, which more or less represented the old Atatürk traditions. Several minor Communist and Socialist parties represented the various extremes of the left, whereas the National Action Party spoke for Turkish nationalists and the National Salvation Party advocated a return to an Islam-oriented state. Both of these parties favoured active social and economic programmes, making it difficult to classify them as right wing in the ordinary sense of the term. The proportional representation provisions of the 1961 constitution made it difficult for any party to gain the majority needed to enact effective legislation. Action, therefore, was taken to the streets.

F.3.

Occupation of Cyprus

Throughout the governmental chaos of this era, Turkey remained faithful to its alliance with the West, providing military bases for NATO and US forces facing the USSR. This alliance was subjected to considerable strain in 1974, when Turkey occupied the northern third of Cyprus in response to a Greek-engineered coup on the island, declaring it an independent republic. The United States subsequently suspended military and economic aid, and Turkey responded by temporarily closing all US bases in the country. Turkish troops remained in northern Cyprus, and Turkey continued to support a separate Turkish Cypriot government, defying the United States and the UN.

European governments in the 1990s began negotiations with both Greece and Turkey to admit a divided Cyprus to full membership of the EU. The Congress of the United States ultimately resumed its assistance, leading the Turks to reopen the bases, but the incident left them suspicious of the US presence, a situation encouraged and amplified by the vocal leftist groups and abetted by Communist propaganda. Islamic groups also began to oppose the US presence, preferring that Turkey abandon its secularist traditions in foreign affairs and draw closer to the Muslim Arab countries that were benefiting from their new-found oil wealth and the resulting political power.

F.4.

Army Coup of 1980

The government (1979-1980) of Süleyman Demirel chose to retain Turkey’s close alliance with the West in the hope of developing the private sector of the economy with foreign assistance. The Republican People’s Party reacted by advocating socialist control of the basic means of production and the establishment of new alliances with the Developing World and the Communist bloc. Extremists on both the left and the right turned to political assassinations and other forms of violent acts. On September 12, 1980, the army took over the government and suspended the constitution. The new rulers imposed martial law, banned political activity, restricted the press, and jailed thousands of suspected terrorists.

The army governed through the National Security Council; the council’s head, General Kenan Evren, was Chief of State, and Admiral Bülent Ulusu became prime minister.

F.5.

Civilian Rule

A major step towards civilian rule was taken in 1982, when a new constitution was enacted, under which Evren became president of the republic. Parliamentary elections in November 1983 resulted in an upset victory for the conservative Motherland Party (the army had favoured a more right-wing group), and party leader Turgut Özal became prime minister. In 1989 Özal was chosen as Turkey’s first civilian head of state since 1960, and Yildirim Akbulut replaced him as prime minister.

Akbulut was replaced by Mesut Yilmaz in 1991, and was himself replaced by Tansu Çiller, an economist, in 1993, who headed the True Path Party (DYP). Turkey supported the international effort to oust Iraq from Kuwait during 1990 and 1991, although no Turkish troops fought in the Persian Gulf War. After the war, in the wake of an unsuccessful uprising by Iraqi Kurds, hundreds of thousands of Kurdish refugees crossed the border into Turkey. Many were kept near the border under the temporary watch of allied troops.

F.6.

Kurdish Resistance

Since 1984 an unofficial war has raged between successive Turkish governments and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Marxist terrorist group trying to win autonomy for the country’s 15 million Kurds. The conflict is mostly confined to the south-east of the country, where the highest concentration of Kurds lives. In March 1995 the government of Çiller, announcing its intention to wipe out the PKK separatist movement, mounted one of the biggest ever attacks against the rebels, penetrating 40 km (25 mi) into what was the UN protection zone for Kurdish areas of north-eastern Iraq.

Turkey has been criticized by Western governments and international human rights organizations for apparent abuses against the Kurdish community. Çiller’s government attempted to pass more liberal laws bringing Kurdish nationalists back into the body politic and allowing Kurdish schools to re-open.

F.7.

Growth of Fundamentalism

The pro-Islamic Welfare Party made gains in the general election in December, prompting left- and right-wing secular parties to forge an anti-Islamic alliance. In April 1996 Çiller’s True Path Party and the Motherland Party formed a power-sharing coalition government. Corruption charges against Çiller, however, threatened the survival of the coalition. In July 1996 Necmettin Erbakan, of the Welfare Party, became the new prime minister of Turkey, following a coalition agreement with the True Path Party. Many people feared a move in the country towards Islamic fundamentalism following many decades of secular progress and pro-Western policies. Turkey showed support for the Bosnian Muslims in the war in the former Yugoslavia.

Erbakan resigned in June 1997 under pressure from the armed forces. Tansu Çiller, who had a power-sharing arrangement with Erbakan, made a bid to lead a caretaker government. President Demirel however, invited Mesut Yilmaz to form a government, which Tansu Çiller refused to join, citing Demirel’s invitation as undemocratic. The continued defection of deputies from the True Path Party was seen by many observers as having negative implications for Çiller’s political future.

In August the Grand National Assembly passed a controversial education bill that extended the length of compulsory elementary education from five to eight years, thus effectively raising the minimum age of enrolment at Islamic schools to 14. It was thought that the bill would substantially reduce the number of enrolments at Islamic schools and ensure that those who did enrol did so at a less impressionable age. The constitutional court began hearing a suit that aimed to dissolve the former ruling Welfare Party that had been led by Erbakan. The chief public prosecutor had filed the suit on grounds of protecting the secular Turkish Republic from being undermined by Islamic fundamentalism.

A new offensive against the Kurds took place in September, when bases in northern Iraq were attacked. In October Turkey was found to have breached its commitment under the European Convention on Human Rights by detaining six former deputies of the pro-Kurdish Democracy Party, and was ordered to pay them compensation. A decision by Cyprus to hold extensive war games and invite participation by Greece, increased tension between Greece and Turkey.

The charge against the Welfare Party was upheld by the constitutional court in January 1998, when it outlawed the party and banned its leader, Necmettin Erbakan, and six party officials from holding political office for five years.

F.8.

The Ecevit Government

Some 100 members of the outlawed Welfare Party regrouped in February 1998 to form the Virtue Party. It became the largest opposition group in the legislature. The government of Mesut Yilmaz collapsed in November following corruption allegations and defeat in a vote of confidence. President Demirel asked the deputy prime minister Bülent Ecevit to form a caretaker government prior to elections in April 1999; but after three weeks of negotiation Ecevit was unable to form a coalition. Yalim Erez was asked to form a government by President Demirel in late December, in a move that ended a long-standing convention that the leader of the largest party in the legislature was appointed prime minister. Erez failed in his attempt to form a government, however, and in January Bülent Ecevit was sworn in as prime minister. After the April 18 elections a coalition government was formed by Ecevit—it included the Democratic Left Party, the far right National Action Party, and the centre-right Motherland Party. The National Assembly approved the Ecevit government by a vote of 354 to 182 on June 9.

F.9.

Abdullah Ocalan and the PKK

Relations with Italy were strained by the Italian decision to refuse the extradition of the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, who had applied for asylum in Italy. Ocalan was released in December 1998, after Germany had withdrawn the international warrant for his arrest, and he left Italy for an unknown destination in January. The following month Ocalan was captured by Turkish special forces in Nairobi, Kenya, where he had been given shelter in the Greek embassy. His arrest was followed by the occupation by Kurdish sympathizers of Greek and Kenyan embassies in many European cities, and in Australia and Canada. The occupation of the Greek Embassy in London, which lasted for three days, was brought to a peaceful conclusion, but three Kurds were killed during an attempt to occupy the Israeli consulate in Berlin. Ocalan was flown to Turkey and later formally charged with treason.

May saw increased PKK violence within Turkey despite calls for peace from the now-incarcerated Ocalan. On June 29 Ocalan was sentenced to death for treason. Reaction within Turkey and abroad was relatively subdued. Three days later Ocalan called for a truce in the war between the Kurds and Turkey and for the PKK to withdraw from Turkey as of September 1. The truce was supported by the PKK’s rival, the People’s Liberation Army of Kurdistan (ARGK). After Ocalan’s death sentence was upheld in November, a final appeal was rejected by the Turkish courts on December 20, 1999, although no date was set for the sentence to be carried out. In February 2000 the PKK announced an end to its 15-year-old armed struggle (which is said to have claimed the lives of 30,000 people), and declared that it would reconstitute itself as a political party.

F.10.

Earthquakes in Izmit, Gölcük, and Düzce

On August 17, 1999, an earthquake measuring 7.4 on the open-ended Richter scale hit the cities of Izmit and Gölcük in the north-west of the country. It killed 17,118, injured 27,000, made 200,000 homeless, and damaged 72,000 buildings. It was Turkey’s worst earthquake since 1939. Turkish officials estimated the earthquake caused between US$5 billion and US$7 billion worth of damage, but many observers said the cost of the earthquake could reach US$25 billion. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank offered Turkey more than US$500 million in emergency funds. Much assistance also came from Greece. Relations with Greece improved, and later in the month senior Turkish and Greek diplomats began a series of meetings in Ankara aimed at easing decades of tension in their relations.

On November 12, 1999, a second earthquake hit north-western Turkey. It measured 7.2 on the open-ended Richter scale and killed more than 700 people and injured at least 5,100 others. The earthquake’s epicentre was near the town of Düzce. Turkish officials estimated the earthquake would cost the Turkish economy as much as US$10 billion.

F.11.

Candidacy for the EU

On the final day of the European Union (EU) summit in Helsinki, Finland, in December, Turkey was among seven countries invited to become a candidate for membership. Greece welcomed Turkey’s invitation. However, EU leaders insisted that Turkey must improve its record on human rights and refer its territorial disputes with Greece to the United Nations International Court of Justice before its long-held wish to join the EU would be considered. However, Prime Minister Ecevit announced that Turkey had no intention of changing its position on such issues in response to EU pressure, but a programme of sweeping economic and political reforms was formally presented by the foreign minister in March 2001 and cautiously welcomed by the EU.

In January 2000, Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou signed a series of agreements with his Turkish counterpart, Ismail Cem, covering tourism, environmental protection, investment, and the fight against crime and terrorism. In March Turkey confirmed its plans to build its first nuclear power plant at Akkuyu Bay on the Mediterranean coast. The announcement came despite opposition from Turkey’s neighbours and local residents, who claimed that the plant would be dangerous because the area is prone to earthquakes.

F.12.

President Sezer Elected

In May 2000 the Turkish parliament elected a leading judge, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, as president to replace Suleyman Demirel. Sezer became the first Turkish president not to be an active politician or a senior military officer.

A political crisis caused by a public row between Sezer and Ecevit in February 2001 triggered the flotation of the lira, in an attempt to avoid losing billions of dollars of scheduled loans from the IMF. After two days of talks with the IMF in March, newly appointed economy minister Kemal Dervis announced that a programme had been agreed upon for reviving foreign investors’ confidence.

In June Turkey’s constitutional court banned the Pro-Islamic Virtue Party upholding the claim that it had been involved in anti-secular activities. The following month former party members formed the Saadet “happiness” Party (SP), under the former prime minister Necmettin Erbakan.

A package of reforms was introduced in October to ease Turkey’s admittance into the EU. They included the banning of the death sentence for certain crimes, allowing Kurdish broadcasts, and reducing the influence of the military in the National Security Council. In changes to the civil code women were given equal status to men in certain areas of life, including employment.

F.12.a.

Justice and Development Party Comes to Power

Eight ministers stood down from the government in July 2002 after failing to remove Ecevit from office. Among them was foreign minister Ismail Cem, who formed a new party (the New Turkey Party) in time for the upcoming elections. The elections were held in early November 2002 and saw the 550 seats divided between the Justice and Development Party (363), the Republican People’s Party (178), and a number of independent politicians. Prime Minister Ecevit's Democratic Left Party (DSP) won just over 1 per cent of the vote, which hastened his departure from the post. On November 16, President Sezer asked Abdullah Gül of the Justice and Development Party to form the new government. It pledged to introduce a further series of reforms to enable Turkey’s quest for EU membership to continue. However, the country received a setback in December 2002 when it was not listed as one of the new invitees to join the EU in the next wave of expansion in 2004, but was encouraged to continue the ongoing reforms.

In domestic politics, constitutional changes were made to allow the head of the Justice and Development Party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to run for parliament and thereby take over as prime minister from Gül, Erdogan had been barred from public office because of a previous criminal conviction. In March 2003 Erdogan won the seat and almost immediately took over as prime minister. Gül became deputy prime minister and foreign minister. Straightaway, he was embroiled in the debate discussing proposed US troop deployments from Turkey into neighbouring Iraq in the US war on the country to topple Saddam Hussein. Ultimately, permission was not given though the US forces were permitted to use Turkish air space in their prosecution of the war.

There was an earthquake centred on the Bingöl region of the country that led to more than 150 deaths in May 2003. In November İstanbul became the focus of a concerted terrorist campaign: 25 people were killed and hundreds injured when car bombs went off near the city's synagogues; days later the target of the bombers were British interests—a British bank and the consulate. In this second atrocity 28 people were killed.

Turkey continued to seek talks over its membership of the European Union, and continued its progress by recognizing Cyprus’s admission to the organization. At home, the government approved more reforms, including those concerning women’s rights and Kurdish culture and language. EU talks commenced in late 2005 after Turkey recognized Cyprus as an EU member.

After more than two decades of fighting the PKK, the Kurdish separatist group, once again put forward plans for a ceasefire in September 2006 at the urging of the jailed rebel leader Abullah Ocalan. However, the truce offer was rebutted by the Turkish military. The summer of 2006 had seen repeated bomb attacks on resorts in Turkey, responsibility for which was claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, a supposed radical offshoot of the PKK.

Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was shot in January 2007. The death of Dink, a vocal critic of the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 and a supporter of Armenian rights in Turkey, was widely condemned, both in Armenia and by the government in Turkey. Street protests were held by protestors angered by the killing. A trial commenced in July, in which a number of Turkish nationalists were indicted. The presidential election, due to be held in April 2007, was declared void by the constitutional court after a single round of voting by MPS after opposition parties refused to participate. The AKP (Justice and Development) candidate Abdullah Gül was the only nomination. In order to offset the impasse parliamentary elections were brought forward to July. The AKP won more than 340 seats despite fears that the party was intent upon an Islamist agenda. Significantly the poll also saw the election of 20 Kurdish members to parliament. Following the election Gül once more stated his intent to stand as president and was eventually elected at the end of August, pledging to uphold the secular state. Despite a presidential veto of the plans by his predecessor, parliament is keen to move forward with proposals for the president to be directly elected in future elections and for the term of office to be cut from seven years to five.