Politics of Turkey

Turkey is a parliamentary representative democracy. Since its foundation as a republic in 1923, Turkey has developed a strong tradition of secularism. Turkey's constitution governs the legal framework of the country. It sets out the main principles of government and establishes Turkey as a unitary centralized state.
The President of the Republic is the head of state and has a largely ceremonial role. The president is elected for a five-year term by direct elections. Abdullah Gül was elected as president on 28 August 2007, by a popular parliament round of votes, succeeding Ahmet Necdet Sezer.
Executive power is exercised by the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers which make up the government, while the legislative power is vested in the unicameral parliament, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature, and the Constitutional Court is charged with ruling on the conformity of laws and decrees with the constitution. The Council of State is the tribunal of last resort for administrative cases, and the High Court of Appeals for all others.
The prime minister is elected by the parliament through a vote of confidence in the government and is most often the head of the party having the most seats in parliament. The current prime minister is the former mayor of İstanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose conservative Justice and Development Party won an absolute majority of parliamentary seats in the 2002 general elections, organized in the aftermath of the economic crisis of 2001, with 34% of the suffrage.


In the 2007 general elections, the AKP received 46.6% of the votes and could defend its majority in parliament.Although the ministers do not have to be members of the parliament, ministers with parliament membership are common in Turkish politics. In 2007, a series of events regarding state secularism and the role of the judiciary in the legislature occurred. These included the controversial presidential election of Abdullah Gül, who in the past had been involved with Islamist parties; and the government's proposal to lift the headscarf ban in universities, which was annulled by the Constitutional Court, leading to a fine and a near ban of the ruling party.
Universal suffrage for both sexes has been applied throughout Turkey since 1933, and every Turkish citizen who has turned 18 years of age has the right to vote. As of 2004, there were 50 registered political parties in the country.The Constitutional Court can strip the public financing of political parties that it deems anti-secular or separatist, or ban their existence altogether.
There are 550 members of parliament who are elected for a four-year term by a party-list proportional representation system from 85 electoral districts which represent the 81 administrative provinces of Turkey (İstanbul is divided into three electoral districts, whereas Ankara and İzmir are divided into two each because of their large populations). To avoid a hung parliament and its excessive political fragmentation, only parties winning at least 10% of the votes cast in a national parliamentary election gain the right to representation in the parliament.[59] Because of this threshold, in the 2007 elections only three parties formally entered the parliament (compared to two in 2002).
Human rights in Turkey have been the subject of much controversy and international condemnation. Between 1998 and 2008 the European Court of Human Rights made more than 1,600 judgements against Turkey for human rights violations, particularly the right to life and freedom from torture. Other issues such as Kurdish rights, women's rights and press freedom have also attracted controversy. Turkey's human rights record continues to be a significant obstacle to future membership of the EU.[64] According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Turkish government has waged one of the world's biggest crackdowns on press freedoms. A large number of journalists have been arrested using charges of terrorism and anti-state activities such as the Ergenekon and Balyoz cases, while thousands have been investigated on charges such as "denigrating Turkishness" in an effort to sow self-censorship. As of 2012, CPJ identified 76 journalists in jail, including 61 directly held for their published work, more than Iran, Eritrea and China.[65] A former U.S. State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley, said that the United States had "broad concerns about trends involving intimidation of journalists in Turkey."

Foreign relations

Turkey is a founding member of the United Nations (1945), the OECD (1961), the OIC (1969), the OSCE (1973), the ECO (1985), the BSEC (1992), the D-8 (1997) and the G-20 major economies (1999). On 17 October 2008, Turkey was elected as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.Turkey's membership of the council effectively began on 1 January 2009.Turkey had previously been a member of the U.N. Security Council in 1951–1952, 1954–1955 and 1961.
In line with its traditional Western orientation, relations with Europe have always been a central part of Turkish foreign policy. Turkey became a founding member of the Council of Europe in 1949, applied for associate membership of the EEC (predecessor of the European Union) in 1959 and became an associate member in 1963. After decades of political negotiations, Turkey applied for full membership of the EEC in 1987, became an associate member of the Western European Union in 1992, joined the EU Customs Union in 1995 and has been in formal accession negotiations with the EU since 2005.
Since 1974, Turkey has not recognized the Republic of Cyprus, but instead supports the Turkish Cypriot community in the form of the de facto Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which was established in 1983 and is recognized only by Turkey.The Cyprus dispute complicates Turkey's relations with both NATO and the EU, and remains a major stumbling block to Turkey's EU accession bid.
The other defining aspect of Turkey's foreign relations has been its ties with the United States. Based on the common threat posed by the Soviet Union, Turkey joined NATO in 1952, ensuring close bilateral relations with Washington throughout the Cold War. In the post–Cold War environment, Turkey's geostrategic importance shifted towards its proximity to the Middle East, the Caucasus and the Balkans. In return, Turkey has benefited from the United States' political, economic and diplomatic support, including in key issues such as the country's bid to join the European Union.
The independence of the Turkic states of the Soviet Union in 1991, with which Turkey shares a common cultural and linguistic heritage, allowed Turkey to extend its economic and political relations deep into Central Asia,thus enabling the completion of a multi-billion-dollar oil and natural gas pipeline from Baku in Azerbaijan to the port of Ceyhan in Turkey. The Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline forms part of Turkey's foreign policy strategy to become an energy conduit to the West. However, Turkey's border with Armenia, a state in the Caucasus, remains closed following Armenia's occupation of Azerbaijani territory during the Nagorno-Karabakh War.Under the AK Party government, Turkey's influence has grown in the Middle East based on the strategic depth doctrine, also called Neo-Ottomanism.

Military

The Turkish Armed Forces consists of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. The Gendarmerie and the Coast Guard operate as parts of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in peacetime, although they are subordinated to the Army and Navy Commands respectively in wartime, during which they have both internal law enforcement and military functions.
The Turkish Armed Forces is the second largest standing armed force in NATO, after the U.S. Armed Forces, with a combined strength of just over a million uniformed personnel serving in its five branches.Since 2003, Turkey contributes military personnel to Eurocorps and takes part in the EU Battlegroups.Turkey is also considered to be the strongest military power of the Middle East region besides Israel.
Every fit male Turkish citizen otherwise not barred is required to serve in the military for a period ranging from three weeks to fifteen months, dependent on education and job location.Turkey does not recognise conscientious objection and does not offer a civilian alternative to military service.
Turkey is one of five NATO member states which are part of the nuclear sharing policy of the alliance, together with Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.A total of 90 B61 nuclear bombs are hosted at the Incirlik Air Base, 40 of which are allocated for use by the Turkish Air Force.
In 1998, Turkey announced a modernization program worth US$160 billion over a twenty year period in various projects including tanks, fighter jets, helicopters, submarines, warships and assault rifles.Turkey is a Level 3 contributor to the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program.
Turkey has maintained forces in international missions under the United Nations and NATO since 1950, including peacekeeping missions in Somalia and former Yugoslavia, and support to coalition forces in the First Gulf War. Turkey maintains 36,000 troops in northern Cyprus; their presence is supported and approved by the de facto local government, but the Republic of Cyprus and the international community regard it as an illegal occupation force, and its presence has also been denounced in several United Nations Security Council resolutions.[83] Turkey has had troops deployed in Afghanistan as part of the United States stabilisation force and the UN-authorized, NATO-commanded International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) since 2001.In 2006, the Turkish parliament deployed a peacekeeping force of Navy patrol vessels and around 700 ground troops as part of an expanded United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in the wake of the Israeli-Lebanon conflict.[85]
The Chief of the General Staff is appointed by the president and is responsible to the prime minister. The Council of Ministers is responsible to parliament for matters of national security and the adequate preparation of the armed forces to defend the country. However, the authority to declare war and to deploy the Turkish Armed Forces to foreign countries or to allow foreign armed forces to be stationed in Turkey rests solely with the parliament.The actual commander of the armed forces is the Chief of the General Staff General Necdet Özel since August 4, 2011.

Administrative divisions

The capital city of Turkey is Ankara. The territory of Turkey is subdivided into 81 provinces for administrative purposes. The provinces are organized into 7 regions for census purposes; however, they do not represent an administrative structure. Each province is divided into districts, for a total of 923 districts.
Provinces usually bear the same name as their provincial capitals, also called the central district; exceptions to this custom are the provinces of Hatay (capital: Antakya), Kocaeli (capital: İzmit) and Sakarya (capital: Adapazarı). Provinces with the largest populations are Istanbul (13 million), Ankara (5 million), İzmir (4 million), Bursa (3 million) and Adana (2 million).
The biggest city and the pre-Republican capital Istanbul is the financial, economic and cultural heart of the country.An estimated 75.5% of Turkey's population live in urban centers.In all, 19 provinces have populations that exceed 1 million inhabitants, and 20 provinces have populations between 1 million and 500,000 inhabitants. Only two provinces have populations less than 100,000.

Source:Wikipedia