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Turkey (1863-)
Stamp-issuing status: active; Population: 63,528,225 (1997 estimate). A
republic in southeastern Europe and western Asia. The area now occupied by
Turkey was the center of a number of ancient civilizations, and it remained the
center of the Eastern Roman Empire for nearly a thousand years after the fall of
Rome. During most of this period, it was the dominant power of the region. The
Byzantine Empire, weakened by the inroads of Crusaders who found it easier to
ransack Christian lands than to fight infidels, rapidly lost ground in the 13th
and 14th centuries. The Ottoman Turks conquered the outlying provinces, and in
1453 they occupied Constantinople, which became their capital and the center of
their own empire. During the next century, the Turks conquered southeastern
Europe, North Africa and much of the Middle East. At its apex (1550-1683), the
Turkish Empire stretched from the borders of Poland and the Russian steppes to
the Sahara, and from Algeria to Arabia. From the late 17th century on, the
Turkish Empire became increasingly weak and poorly administered, and its
military power declined rapidly. During the 19th century, the territorial
integrity of the state was maintained only because the European powers could not
agree upon the division of the spoils. In a series of generally unsuccessful
wars during 1878-1913, most of Turkey's outlying provinces became independent or
were lost to its more powerful neighbors. In 1914, the Turks joined the Central
Powers. Their defeat cost Turkey most of its remaining territory, and by 1919
only Asia Minor remained. At that point, it became apparent that the Allies
intended to dismember Turkey altogether. In reaction to this threat, a
nationalist Turkish government was formed in Ankara in 1920, with Mustafa Kemal
as president. The Nationalists defeated the Greeks, whom they expelled from
Western Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace and compelled the Allies to withdraw from
the Dardanelles and Cilicia. The Treaty of Lausanne (1923) confirmed Turkish
independence and established its borders along roughly ethnic lines. Kemal
established the republic and launched an ambitious program of social reform and
industrialization. Turkey remained neutral during most of World War II,
declaring war on the Axis in February 1945. Since that time, it has been aligned
with the West and has been a member of NATO since 1952. Tension with Greece, a
fellow NATO member, over the status of Cyprus, has at times threatened to
estrange Turkey from its Western allies. During the 1990's, Turkey has been
plagued by ongoing armed resistance from its Kurdish minority and by the rise in
recent years of a fundamentalist Islamic opposition.
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