Yearbook 2007
 Turkey. The year was marked by elections, constitutional
crisis and arms rattle. A crucial battle was around the
presidential post. The president is elected by Parliament
and has been the strongest guarantor of the secular state
since Turkey was founded. The ruling Islamist Justice and
Development Party AKP's candidate, Foreign Minister Abdullah
G邦l, failed in the first round of voting on April 27 to get
the two-thirds majority required. According to
CountryAAH, the vote was also annulled
because not enough members had been present when the secular
Republican People's Party (CHP) had boycotted the session.
On May 6, a new vote was held, which the CHP also boycotted,
whereupon Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to secure a
more stable majority, announced a new election until July
22. The country's defense headquarters announced that it
would not hesitate to intervene if the country's secular
base was threatened. In the parliamentary elections, the AKP
received 47 percent of the vote and 341 of the 550 seats, a
slight decline due to the fact that the right-wing
Nationalist Action Party (MHP) managed to get over the
parliament's 10-percent block and get 70 seats. On August
28, the third presidential vote was held. Now only a 50
percent majority was required, and G邦l was elected with 339
out of 550 votes. In order to prevent similar crises in the
future, the government prepared in spring a proposal for a
new constitution according to which the president would be
elected by universal suffrage. The proposal was voted on in
a referendum on October 21. a slight decline due to the
right-wing Nationalist Party of Action (MHP) succeeding over
the parliament's 10-percent block and getting 70 seats. On
August 28, the third presidential vote was held. Now only a
50 percent majority was required, and G邦l was elected with
339 out of 550 votes. In order to prevent similar crises in
the future, the government prepared in spring a proposal for
a new constitution according to which the president would be
elected by universal suffrage. The proposal was voted on in
a referendum on October 21. In order to prevent similar
crises in the future, the government prepared in spring a
proposal for a new constitution according to which the
president would be elected by universal suffrage. The
proposal was voted on in a referendum on October 21. In
order to prevent similar crises in the future, the
government prepared in spring a proposal for a new
constitution according to which the president would be
elected by universal suffrage. The proposal was voted on in
a referendum on October 21.
About 100,000 soldiers were mobilized in the spring and
summer along the Iraq border and launched into attacks
against the Kurdish PKK guerrilla, which had about 3,000 men
in northern Iraq. Turkey and Iraq signed several agreements
that Iraq would try to drive away the PKK (which, after
operating under other designations, retook its original
name). The clashes escalated during the fall and in
December, the Turkish military conducted several air strikes
in Iraqi territory and also joined ground troops. Iraq, and
especially the Kurdish regional government in the north of
the country, protested loudly.
Turkey's membership negotiations with the EU slipped. In
December 2006, the EU had frozen negotiations in eight of 35
negotiating chapters, but negotiations resumed in March in
one chapter (business and industry) and in June another two
(statistics and financial control). France stopped
negotiations for another chapter (currency union). In its
annual report on membership negotiations in October, the
European Commission called on Turkey to speed up its
reforms, particularly in the areas of freedom of expression,
civilian control over the military and rights of minorities.
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was murdered on
January 19 outside his editorial office in Istanbul. 18
suspects were arrested, among them a 17-year-old from
Trabzon who was believed to have held the weapon. Shortly
thereafter, images were published showing the 17-year-old
proudly holding a Turkish flag along with smiling police
officers. The images sparked intense debate and many police
officers involved were dismissed. In October, Dink's son,
journalist Arat Dink, and a colleague were sentenced to
conditional prison sentences for "offending Turkish" by
publishing an interview with Hrant Dink. At the same time,
Turkey called home its US ambassador for consultations since
the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee had
designated the events in Turkey in 1915-23, when up to 1.5
million Armenians were killed, as genocide.
On February 16, the Supreme Court sentenced seven men,
two of them members of the Islamist terrorist network
al-Qaeda, to life imprisonment for involvement in the blast
attacks in Istanbul in 2003, which claimed 62 lives. Another
41 people were sentenced to prison for up to 15 years. On
February 26, 20 members of the Turkish group Hizbullah (not
to be confused with the Iran-backed guerrilla in Lebanon)
were sentenced to life imprisonment for killing dozens of
civilians in the 1980s and 1990s.
Three Christians - two Turks and one German - were
murdered on April 18 in the city of Malatya in the
southeastern part of the country.
At least 53 refugees, probably more, drowned on December
8 when a boat on its way to Greece with nearly 100 people on
board capsized in severe weather outside Izmir. The refugees
were Iraqis, Somalis and Palestinians. Turkey deployed a
large rescue force to find survivors.
All 56 people on board died on November 30 when a
McDonnell Douglas 83 aircraft crashed during a flight
between Istanbul and Isparta.
Turkey - Ankara
Ankara
Aʹnkara, until 1930 Angora, the capital of Turkey; 4. 6 million
residents (2015). Ankara, which is located in the interior of Asia Minor, is the
capital mainly administrative, financial and commercial center. The city is also
a traffic hub and has several universities. Ankara is located in an agricultural
district known for its wine and sugar beet cultivation and breeding of angora
(for production of mohair yarn). The industrial image is dominated by the
defense industry, but also includes the textile industry and industries based on
agricultural products and the automotive industry. There are also many
businesses that relate to the city's role as a management center and capital.
Cityscape and buildings
Ankara has a small historical core of oriental type. However, the majority of
the city dates from the post-1923 period and has the character of a modern
Western European metropolis. The main street Atatürk Bulvari is bordered by
public buildings. After the Second World War, three universities and a national
library were added. The city has several major theaters, state opera, ballet and
philharmonic orchestra. Among the city's museums are the archeological with
world-famous collections of the Hittites.
The old Oriental neighborhood, Uluş, is located around the old citadel and is
the commercial center of the city. Here is also the Ankaras oldest mosque,
Alaeddin Camii, from the end of the 12th century. The new European city,
Yenişehir, began to be built south of the old city center in 1928. During the
Republic, Ankara has developed into an administrative and, above all, a
political center. A large part of Turkey's power elite resides here. Several of
the country's important educational institutions are also located here. At the
same time, the majority of the population consists of inhabited rural residents
living in slum dwellings that form entire suburbs, so-called gekekondu,
on the northern and eastern outskirts of Ankaras. Nearly 60% of the population
of Ankaras is estimated to reside in such neighborhoods where ethnic and
religious enclaves from all over Anatolia are found. Industrialization,
emissions and large population growth, largely dependent on continued migration
from the countryside, contribute to widespread air pollution and major shortages
in the city's water supply.
History
Traces of settlement from the time of the Hittites (before 1200 BC) were
found in Ankara, but only during the Fridays (from about 800 BC) did the resort
become a city. In the 20th century BC the area came to belong to the Celts, the
Galatians, immigrated to Asia Minor, and Ankara first became the seat of the
tribe, then (74 BC) the capital of a kingdom and finally under the capital of
Augustus in the Roman province of Galatia.
Significant ruins exist from Roman times, especially the Temple of Rome and
Augustus, on whose walls the most complete copies of Augustus' "activity report"
( Res gestae divi Augusti ) are preserved. In 51, Paul visited the city
and then wrote the Galatians to the Christians living there.
In 1360, Ankara came under Ottoman rule, and it was there that Timur Lenk
1402 defeated and captured Sultan Bayezid. Until 1923, when the Turkish National
Congress, on the proposal of Kemal Atatürk, moved the capital to Ankara,
however, the place remained insignificant.
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