Timeline / Year:

What happened:

1 million years ago: First humans in Anatolia

• Paleolithic era ("Old Stone Age"): In a cave at Yarımburgaz, just 32 km from İstanbul, archaeologists discovered million-year old  human remains, some of the oldest in the world outside Africa. Early humans probably appeared in Turkey and neighboring Georgia 1.8 million years ago. However, nobody alive today actually descended from these early humans.
  
• According to DNA studies (by Dr. Spencer Wells and others), every human on earth today descended from one small African tribe living only 60,000 years ago, less than 2000 generations back! See National Geographic's "Genographic Project" (this link leaves my site).

7000-5500 BCE:
Çatal Höyük, 
world's first city

• Çatal Höyük (50 km southeast of Konya) arose from obsidian trade and became one of the earliest known cities in the world (during the Neolithic Era and Chalcolithic Era / Copper Age). 
• Jericho, in the present day West Bank in the Middle East, may be older, dating from 8000 BCE, but Çatal Höyük appears more culturally advanced around 7000 BCE.

Image on right: Cybele was an ancient Anatolian and Phrygian mother earth goddess worshipped since Neolithic times (~8500 BCE). This human sized marble statue of Cybele is found at the Ephesus Archaeological Museum in Selçuk, adjacent to Ephesus. Cybele was akin to the later Greek goddess Artemis (also called Cynthia, named from her birth place of Mount Cynthus on Delos Island, in present day Greece). Artemis was Apollo's twin sister, daughter of Zeus and Leto. Artemis was also akin to the later Roman goddess Diana. The multiple rounded protuberances on the chest of Cybele are actually not breasts, nor are they sacrificed bull testes. Excavation at the site of the Artemision in 1987-88 identified these as tear-shaped amber beads, which adorned her ancient wooden xoanon (carved cult image). 

5000 BCE  

• Copper Age (Chalcolithic Era). Hacılar settlement, probably related to Çatal Höyük. 

2600-1900 BCE  

• Early Bronze Age. Proto-Hittite Empire in central and SE Anatolia. 

1900-1300 BCE:
Hittite Empire

• Hittite Empire rules central Anatolia and wars with Egypt. 
• Abraham is born in the thriving Mesopotamian port of Ur (in present day Iraq), or possibly in Urfa/Şanlıurfa (Anatolia). A Jewish story (not found in the Bible) says pagan King Nimrod persecuted monotheistic Abraham, causing him to flee to Haran (Anatolia). In Haran (now Harran, Turkey), Abraham first hears words from God, telling him to go forth to Canaan (the area from Syria through Egypt, including Palestine and Israel). Through his strong faith in a single God, Abraham fathered Judaism, Christianity (see 4 BCE), and Islam (see 570 CE).

1250 BCE:
Troy

• Trojan War: Achaean Greeks with Achilles & Ulysses fight the Trojans with Paris at Troy (Turkish Truva).
  
• Troy was part of the Assuwa Confederation of states spread across western Anatolia. (Assuwa may be the root of the Greek word "Asia".)
  
• The archaeological site of Troy is on the northwest coast of present day Turkey, southwest of the Dardanelles under Mount Ida. 

1200-600 BCE:
Archaic Greek civilization

• Phrygians (Indo-Europeans from Thrace) invade to near Ankara. King Midas rules.
• The great period of Archaic Greek civilization thrives. 
• 1000 BCE: Colonists from Greece flee Dorian invasion and arrive south of İzmir to found Ionia, including Ephesus, which prospered by 600 BCE.
• ~700 BCE: Birth of Homer, founder of western literature, in Smyrna (modern İzmir).
• Kingdom of Lycia. 
• 650-546 BCE: The kings of Lydia dominate western Anatolia, ending with King Croesus:
• 560-546 BCE: Croesus is King of Lydia, with capital at Sardis, where coins are invented, and the phrase "rich as Croesus" is coined.

Image on right: Ephesus is full of history:
     The column on the right foreground was pieced together from the few remains of the Temple of Artemis (or Greek: Artemision; Latin: Artemisium; or the Sanctuary of the "Lady of Ephesus”), which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (originally described by Antipater of Sidon). The domed building at middle left is the Church of Jesus Christ, which now serves as a mosque.  To the right and behind is the 6th century Church of Saint John the Apostle. On the hill at top left is Selçuk Castle, a Byzantine construction from the 6th century CE.
     Greek goddess Artemis was akin to the earlier Phrygian goddess Cybele, the ancient Anatolian mother goddess, worshiped since Neolithic times. Artemis was also akin to the later Roman goddess Diana.
     The large Temple of Artemis (measuring 300 by 150 feet) was finished about 560 BCE, after 120 years of construction, started by the notoriously rich Croesus of Lydia on the ruins of a smaller temple designed by Chersiphron. A fame seeker named Herostratus burnt down the Temple of Artemis in 356 BCE. The Ephesians eventually rebuilt it bigger, measuring 425 by 225 feet, four times larger in area than the existing Parthenon of Athens (228 x 101 feet; completed 431 BCE).
     In 262 CE, the Temple of Artemis was razed again, this time by Goths. The Ephesians rebuilt again. But in the year 401, St. John Chrysostom had it torn down. The stones were reused in other buildings -- some of the columns in Hagia Sophia originally belonged to the Temple of Artemis.
     Christian note: Paul of Tarsus (Paul the Apostle) stayed 27 months as a missionary in Ephesus. A few years after 51 CE, he delivered a rousing Christian sermon condemning pagan worship in the Great Theater in Ephesus. Local silversmiths feared loss of income from the sale of silver statues (idols) of the goddess Artemis, and the resulting mob almost killed Paul and his companions (Acts 19:21–41, New Testament). After that, Paul avoided Ephesus. Paul died about 64-67 CE in Rome during Nero's Persecution. However, centuries later, the tide turned in favor of Christianity. During the fourth century, most Ephesians probably converted to Christianity, as all pagan temples were declared closed by Theodosius I in 391 CE.

657 BCE to 
330 CE 
(987 years): 

Byzantium
(Greek city-state, later subject to Rome)

• 700-400 BCE: local languages such as Carian, Lycian, and Phrygian gradually disappear as people adopt Hellenism, the appealing Greek culture.
• 657 BCE - 176 CE: Byzantium, a Greek city-state, later subject to Rome. 
• 500's BCE: The Armenians, who probably came from a Phrygian tribe, from Urartian (518-330 BCE) descendants, or from the Caucasus Mountains, start settlements around Lake Van (originally "Sea of Nairne"). Armenians achieve greatest power for only a short period, 83-69 BCE.
• 547 BCE: Cyrus of Persia invades Anatolia, conquering everybody and everything (including Lycia, which stays autonomous), followed by his successors Darius and Xerxes.
• 475-323 BCE: Classical period of Greek art.
• 484 BCE - 425 BCE: Herodotus of Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum, in Turkey; or Halikarnas in Turkish) was the first person to systematically document the past, and he became known as the "Father of History" centuries later in Western culture (Greek: Ἡρόδοτος Ἁλικαρνᾱσσεύς, Hēródotos Halikarnāsseús).
• 400 BCE - 47 BCE:  In its golden era around 281 BCE, the Pontic Kingdom, based in Trebizond (Trabzon) & Amasya, extends all the way to Cappadocia. See "47 BCE Caesar" below.
• 334 BCE: Alexander the Great from Macedon defeats the Persians, conquering "simply everybody and everything" (the entire Middle East, from Greece to India), spreading Greek culture far and wide. After his death in 323 BCE, Alexander's generals fracture the empire with civil wars. 
• 323 BCE - 31 BCE: The "Hellenistic Period" of Greek culture & art thrives in the centuries between Alexander and the Romans.
• 279 BCE: Celt (or Gaul) mercenaries (kinsmen of the Celts who settled in France, Britain, & Ireland) move into Anatolia, & they set up Galatia, with their capital at Ancyra (Ankara), where Celtic language survives for 600 years.
• 189 BCE: Romans conquer the Lycians. Later, in the 300's CE, Lycia becomes a Roman province.
• 129 BCE: Rome establishes the Province of Asia (Asia Minor), with its capital at Ephesus.
• 83-69 BCE: Armenians achieve their greatest power in eastern Anatolia around Lake Van in this short 14-year period. Over millennia, Armenians were repeatedly subjected to bigger states, including those of Alexander the Great, Romans, Byzantine Greeks, Persians, Syrian Arabs, Seljuk Turks, and Ottoman Turks. (See 1890-1923 Armenian Resistance below).
• 68-38 BCE: On top of Nemrut Mountain, Antiochus I of tiny Commagene Kingdom builds a huge tumulus framed by twin temples decorated with huge stone statues [which can be visited today at the impressive Nemrut Mountain National Park (Nemrut Dağı), near Malatya, Turkey].
• 47 BCE: Julius Caesar says "veni, vidi, vici", a famous Latin phrase meaning "I came, I saw, I conquered", near Amasya, after a battle against King Pharnaces II, who was trying to reestablish the Pontic kingdom of his ancestors by attacking the Roman provinces of Galatia, Armenia, and Cappadocia.

• 4~8 BCE - 29 CE: Jesus Christ, a Jew born in Bethlehem, Judea, founds Christianity and is crucified & immortalized.
• 45-58 CE: Paul of Tarsus (Paul the Apostle; or Saint Paul) spreads Christianity in Anatolia over several trips and stays 27 months at Ephesus.
• 70 CE: Roman destruction of Jerusalem spreads more Christian Jews into Anatolia, strengthening their communities.
• 196 CE: Roman leader Septimius Severus invades errant Byzantium, rebuilds his damage, and renames the city to Augusta Antonina. 
• 196 - 330  CE: Augusta Antonina, an important city under Roman control. 

330 to 
1453 CE 
(1,123 years): 

Constantinople, & the Byzantine Empire  

• 330 CE: Emperor Constantine the Great (306-337 CE) moves the center of the Roman Empire to the "New Rome," which he renames from Augusta Antonina to Constantinople. Constantine, a pagan sun-worshiper influenced by his Christian mother, elevates Christianity and gets baptized just before his death. Within 20 years, Christianity goes from persecuted faith to state religion.  Constantinople remains capital of Eastern Christendom until 1453. 
• Constantinople serves as capital of the Byzantine Empire (or Later Roman Empire) for 1,123 years. 
• 400's: Emperor Theodosius II builds Constantinople's walls, the strongest in Europe. 
• 527-65: Justinian reigns as greatest Byzantine emperor, & builds Hagia Sofia, greatest Christian church in the world for nearly 1000 years.
• 500's - 900's: The Byzantine Emperor invites Central Asian Turks into Anatolia to serve as mercenaries. These Turks look oriental until intermarriage blends them in by the 900's. See "1037 Seljuks" below. (Turks are culturally distinct from Arabs or Persians.)
• Spread of Islam:
• 570-632: Mohammed's birth; revelation of the Koran; flight (hijra) from Mecca to Medina in 622; death. 
• 650's: Koran recorded.
• 654-718: Islamic Arab armies conquer "simply everybody and everything" from Mecca to Persia, Egypt, and Anatolia, where they destroy aquaducts, end the "Classical era," and take Ankara, but fail to breach the strong walls of Constantinople. In Cappadocia, Christians hide in cave cities carved from volcanic tuff.
• 800-900's: Turks convert to Islam.
• 1037-1109: Great Seljuk Turkish Empire, based in Persia (today's Iran), covers most of Turkey & Iraq. See "1071 Seljuks" below.
• 1097-1270: Age of the Crusades, Christian "holy wars" against Muslims who occupy Christian Holy Lands. The Crusades provide economic expansion and work for lesser nobles of Europe, but spell disaster for Byzantine emperors in Constantinople, and ultimately fail to retake the Holy Lands. The Crusades leave little mark except for empty castles and churches.
• 1202-04: disorderly armies of the Fourth Crusade from Europe plunder Christian Constantinople, in its first and worst defeat ever, ironically by "friendly" armies. 

1071-1243 CE: 

Turkish Seljuk Sultanate of Rum

• 1071 CE: Seljuk Turks beat the Byzantine Empire at Manzikert (near Erzurum), founding the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum (1071-1243), based in Konya. Alarmed by this incursion of infidels, the Pope calls for the First Crusade in 1097, but too late. 
• The Seljuk Turks emulate the Seljuk Empire in Baghdad, Persia, plus they allow religious autonomy for Christians, Jews, Armenian Gregorians, and other groups, in the millet community system continued by the Ottomans.
• 1100's: Tribes of Turkish nomadic shepherds settle Anatolia. 
• Famous Seljuks: Aladdin Keykubad, ruler; Omar Kyayyam, poet; & Celaleddin Rumi (Mevlana), founder of the Whirling Dervishes. 
• 1219-1300's: Mongol armies (Genghis Khan, 1219-1227, and his descendents) drive many Turks westwards into Anatolia. The Mongols destroy much of Persia but leave Anatolia intact, building much in the Seljuk Muslim (instead of Mongol shaman) style, as seen in Amasya and Sivas. (See 1288 Ottoman birth.)

Right: The Gök Medrese (Celestial or Sky-Blue Seminary) was built in 1277 AD after the fall of the Seljuks and the arrival of the Mongols, near Sivas, in the present-day Republic of Turkey. It was a hospital until 1811, and is now a museum. This view is from one minaret looking towards the other.

1288-1922 CE: 

Turkish 
Ottoman Empire

• 1288 CE: Birth of the Ottoman (Osmanlı) Empire, near Bursa, by Turks fleeing Mongols.
• 1453: Islamic conquest of Constantinople by Mehmet II, with break-through help from the world's largest cannon.
• 1520-66: Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent reigns over the great age of the Ottoman Empire, controlling most of North Africa and Eastern Europe and all of the Middle East, with navies patrolling Mediterranean, Red Sea, & Indian Ocean.
• 1554: İstanbul started the world's first known coffeehouses. 
• 1821-1829: Greek War of Independence reduces Ottoman holdings and leads to an unstable Greek kingdom in the Peloponnese, Sterea Ellada, and the Cyclades and Sporades Islands.
• 1821-1913: In a little-remembered round of fratricide and holocaust, more than half a million Muslims were murdered or driven from their homes in the Balkan peninsula and Greece by Christian Greeks, Christian Bosnian Serbs, Christian Bulgarians and Christian Russian Cossacks (Russian policy was to replace Muslims with Slavs). Thousands of mosques and shrines were destroyed, and to this day, only one or two mosques are left in Greece.
• 1876-1909: Sultan Abdül Hamit reigns as last of the powerful sultans. The "Eastern Question": which European nations can grab Ottoman territory when the empire topples? 
• 1914-1918: Ottoman Empire sides with Germany in World War I, then collapses in defeat. 
• 1915-1916: Mustafa Kemal (see below) earns hero status in his brilliant Turkish defense of Gallipoli, saving İstanbul/Constantinople from the British.
• 1918: The first Treaty of Versailles ends World War I. 
• 1919 Greek Invasion: Ever since Greek independence in 1831, Greece had yearned to reestablish the boundaries of the Byzantine Empire, so they invade the Ottoman city of İzmir in 1919 with British encouragement. As the Ottoman Empire collapses in defeat, General Mustafa Kamal (see Atatürk below) organizes a democratic revolutionary government in Ankara, and with very limited resources, brilliantly holds off invading Greek, French, and Italian armies.

• 1890-1923, Armenian Resistance, Deportation, and Genocide: 
• In an era of rising ethnic nationalism and weakening Ottomans, the Christian Armenians in the Muslim heartland of Eastern Anatolia hoped for independence from the Ottoman Empire, and welcomed the 1915 Russian invasion in World War I. But the stressed Ottomans fiercely resisted the Russians and escalated their oppression of Armenians to deportation and genocide 1915-23. The lands that Armenians had called home for 3000 years were purged of Armenians and became known as Kurdistan. (Also see Armenians above in 500's BCE & 83-69 BCE)
• 1920: Mustafa Kemal's Turkish nationalist army reclaim control of former Armenian territories and sign a peace treaty with Armenia. 
• What happened in the 1915-23 Armenian Deportation and Genocide is a hot issue to this day (as of 2004): 
• Today Armenians are lobbying governments in the United States and Europe to adopt public resolutions affirming that Turks of the failing Ottoman Empire killed between 1 and 2 million of its native Armenians in deportations and genocide. (In 1915, this number was reported as 300,000.)  Few people worldwide deny this genocide, other than Turkish nationalists.  However, the United States has been reluctant to pass the resolution because of sensitive ties with strategic ally Turkey plus compelling interest in the Caspian Sea oil pipeline crossing Azerbaijan, which is an Armenian foe.
• Against the tide of world opinion, Turkish nationalists today still deny that their ancestors performed "genocide", and prefer to characterize this period as a "civil war" where all sides suffered, which is also true. 
• The term "genocide" entered international law in 1948, but genocides have continued unabated (such as in Rwanda; and Darfur in Sudan, Africa). Humans so far have lacked the moral will to empower an entity such as the United Nations to effectively stop states from mass murdering groups of their own citizens.
  
• An excellent discussion of the genocide debate between Turkey and Armenia is found in the following article outside my web site: The Washington Post.
• The breakup of the Soviet Union reopened an opportunity for Armenians, who helped the Christian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh (an area rich in oil) split from Muslim Azerbaijan in a 1988-94 war. In response, the Republic of Turkey blockades Armenia economically, refuses diplomatic ties, and demands that Armenian troops withdraw from Azerbaijan, which is a close Turkish ally. What happened 90 years ago directly affects the politics of today.
• Armenia is currently a poor country that relies on US aid and support from emigrants in America. For a more detailed history of Armenia, see the following link outside my web site: Lonely Planet "Armenia."

• 1922: Turks win their War of Independence. In the Second Treaty of Versailles, Turkey agrees with the Allies & Greece to uproot and exchange 1.5 million Christian citizens in Anatolia with 400,000 Muslims living in Greece. Homes and whole cities exchanged hands, causing immeasurable heartbreak. Perhaps these home exhanges prevented some future wars, thus avoiding horrible ethnic conflicts such as the ones that later ravaged Yugoslavia & the Balkans. On the other hand, the huge influx of disaffected Christian refugees into Greece may have been the main factor fanning communism, and the subsequent Greek Civil War 1946-1949 between monarchists and democrats, when more Greeks were killed than in World War II.
• 1923: Proclamation of the Turkish Republic, led by Atatürk and his sweeping modern reforms. 
• 1938: Death of Atatürk, who influenced Turkey to be neutral in World War II.
• 1946: Multi-party parliamentary democracy begins in Turkey. The army intervenes in 1960, 1970, 1980 to reestablish democracy. To this day, the Turkish people respect the Army more than any other national institution. 
• 1980's: Kurdish civil war. During the 1980s, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), based in neighboring Syria, Iraq, & Iran and secretly supported by the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Army), killed thousands of people in Southeast Turkey. The Turkish army cracked down severely, and 30,000 Turks and Kurds (mostly Kurds) were killed in the 15-year guerrilla war. See "The Kurds" below.
• 2004: The Republic of Turkey is an ostensibly democratic, secular, western-looking, rapidly modernizing, and capitalistic member of NATO. Greece and Turkey make uneasy NATO allies, and disputes over island territory still simmer. Turkey is especially motivated to improve its uneven human rights record and overcome island disputes in order to gain European Union acceptance, which would expand the economy.

Above: Timeline / Year

Atatürk, "Father of the Turks"

• Mustafa Kamal almost single-handedly turned the backward Ottoman Empire into the secular modern Turkish Republic, thus he was proclaimed Atatürk, "Father of the Turks." Almost every town in Turkey mounts a statue to this national hero. 
• Note that many Hellenic (Greek), Armenian, and other Christian people revile Atatürk, holding him responsible for war crimes; human rights abuses; and the removal of more than a million Christian people from their ancestral homes in Anatolia. However, responsibility for the huge exchange of Christian and Muslim populations between Turkey and Greece is also shared by the Allies & Greece, who also signed the Second Treaty of Versailles in 1922. 
• Sadly, human history repeats an endless round of ethnic conflict (essentially fratricide), where one era's victims become the next era's oppressors. For example, in a little-remembered holocaust from 1821 to 1913, more than half a million Muslims were murdered or driven from their homes in the Balkan peninsula and Greece by various Christian groups including Greeks, Bosnian Serbs, Bulgarians, and Russian Cossacks.
• Ironically, a classical hero of Christian and Greek people is Alexander the Great, a Macedonian responsible for pillaging vast areas, and spreading Greek culture along the way. Coincidentally, Mustafa Kamal was also born in Macedonia (in the city of Salonika, which later became Thessaloniki, Greece).
• He was born Mustafa, and later nicknamed Kemal ("excellence") by his math teacher. 
• He earned hero status in his brilliant defense of Gallipoli (in 1915-1916), saving Constantinople from the British. 
• Ever since Greek independence in 1831, Greece wanted to reestablish the Byzantine Empire's boundaries, so they invaded the Ottoman city of İzmir in 1919 with British encouragement. As the Ottoman Empire collapsed in defeat, General Mustafa Kamal organized a democratic revolutionary government in Ankara (formerly Angora), and with very limited resources, brilliantly held off invading French, Italian, and Greek armies. 
• After the complex task of virtually single-handedly establishing the secular Turkish Republic in 1923, Mustafa Kamal Atatürk lived another 15 years. During this time, as a benevolent dictator, he directed sweeping humanistic reforms on a foundation of Turkish nationalism, including the following:

• adopted a constitution with western-style legal codes, granting women the right to vote and serve parliament (1934). 
• abolished polygamy, and required marriage to be a civil ceremony (non-religious).
• abolished the fez hat (symbol of the Ottomans), replacing it with the kasket, a brimmed cap that prevents bowing to the ground, which Atatürk thought demeaning.
• influenced the next leader of Turkey to be neutral in World War II.
• overhauled the Turkish language (which had evolved from the Seljuk Turks in the 1000's AD, who wrote with Arabic script):

• Non-Turkish words (Arab, Persian, etc.) were removed and replaced by Turkish words (originating in central Asia).
• City names were converted to Turkish (Angora to Ankara, Smyrna to İzmir, Constantinople to İstanbul officially)
• Turks were required to adopt a surname (family name). Up until then, Muslims had only one given name; family names were optional. Parliament proclaimed Mustafa Kamal's family name to be Atatürk, which means "Father of the Turks."
• The Arabic alphabet was replaced with a Latin-based alphabet. Several Turkish letters are not found in English, such as: ç ğ ı İ ö ş and ü. (To correctly view the Turkish letters ğ, ı, and İ in your Internet browser, choose View...Character Set or Encoding...Turkish.) Fortunately, Turkish letters are pronounced the same in every word, making words easier to recite aloud from reading (unlike the many inconsistencies of English, where a letter such as "c" can be pronounced "s" or "k" and vowel pronunciations vary with many exceptions). 
• Turkish grammar is so logical that it forms the basis of Esperanto, an artificial international language. However, word order, verb usage, vowel harmony, and multiple suffixes make Turkish challenging for English speakers. For example, Turkish generally uses the following word order: 

SUBJECT, TIME, PLACE, OBJECT(s), VERB; for example:

• "John this evening at his home to me a book gave he." = "John bu akşam evinde bana bir kitap verdi"

• Recommended reading: Birds without Wings, by Louis de Bernières, 2004. A humanistic historical fiction novel of the political and personal costs of love and war amongst Christians & Muslims of Turkish, Greek and Armenian descent, during the rise of Atatürk. The ghost town of Kayaköy on the Turquoise Coast may be the inspiration behind "Eskişehir", the imaginary village in this novel.
  

The Kurds

Turkey has about 60 million people, mostly Sunni Muslim Turks. Kurds are the biggest minority in Turkey, numbering 10 million (including 6 million in Eastern Turkey).  Kurds in Turkey are virtually all Muslims and physically appear no different than Turks, but maintain their own Kurdish language, culture, and traditions. In search of better wages, 2.3 million Turkish people live and work in Germany, including one-half million Kurds. On the streets of Erzurum, the biggest city in Eastern Turkey, I met Kurds and Turks who mixed freely as friends, which I take as a positive sign for Turkey's aspirations towards a pluralistic society more acceptable in the eyes of the European Union and the world.

Kurds, who speak an Indo-European language (Kurdish), are closely related to the Persians, and migrated to Southeast Turkey from northern Europe centuries before Christ. Kurds and Ottoman era Turks coexisted in relative peace for hundreds of years. But since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, in an era of ethnic nationalism, many Kurds in disparate tribes hoped to create a new nation of "Greater Kurdistan," which would consolidate the Kurdish territories across Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. (Note that many of the atrocities that Armenians blame on "Turks" in this era were actually done by Kurds, who historically feuded with Armenians over the same territory around Mount Ararat.) 

In 1923, the Republic of Turkey was founded on a policy of ethnic Turk nationalism, which wrongly classified Kurds as "mountain Turks," who were supposedly "equal citizens" except that the Kurdish language and culture were outlawed! 

During the 1980s, a small number of Kurds, mostly from down-trodden under classes, joined the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) out of hunger, desperation, and nothing to lose. PKK was based in neighboring Syria, Iraq, & Iran and secretly supported by the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization). PKK guerrillas killed thousands of people in Southeast Turkey. The Turkish army responded severely, and 30,000 people on both sides, but mostly Kurds, were killed in the 15-year guerrilla war. In 1988, Iraq killed 5,000 of its native Kurds with poison gas, pushed survivors towards Turkey and brought their plight to the attention of Europe and the USA, who pressured Turkey to become more lenient towards their Kurds. 

As of 1999, Turkey officially legalized Kurdish language conversations, songs, and a radio station, but attitudes are still slow to change. Kurdish feudal lords currently have de facto control over Southeast Turkey: 80% of land is owned by 5% of the population, and 50% of the Kurds own no land. The majority of Kurds live in harmony with Turks, but tensions will remain for generations to come as Turkey slowly evolves into a more integrated multicultural nation.

Turkey's huge Southeast Anatolia Project (GAP) helps bring prosperity to Kurds and reduce discontent. GAP projects, such as Atatürk Dam on the Euphrates River, inject money into Kurdish territory and employ 1.8 million people. GAP is comprised of 22 dams, 19 hydroelectric power plants, and irrigation facilities on the Firat (Euphrates) and Dicle (Tigris) rivers, to be finished by 2005. However, neighboring Syria and Iraq are not happy about GAP because it reduces their water flow.

Turkey Index:     To correctly view the Turkish letters ğ, ı, and İ on this page in your Internet browser, choose View...Encoding...Turkish or Character Set...Turkish.)
Back to Page 1 of 2:  Introduction , Anatolia's fame , Christian sights , silk , total solar eclipse ; İstanbul & history ( Hagia Sofia , Süleymaniye Mosque ) ; Turquoise Coast ( Santa Claus - St. Nicholas , Lycia , Ephesus , Gemile Island , Kayakoy , Arycanda , Perga ) ; Cappadocia ; Eastern Turkey ( Black Sea Coast , Kaçkar Mountains , Nemrut Mountain )

Index to this Page 2 of 2:   Anatolia's History , Islam , Atatürk , Turks , Kurds , Armenians , Armenian Genocide , Greek & Turk War of 1919-1922
See also: GREECE: Greek War of Independence 1821-1829