Turkey

Turkey,[a] officially the Republic of Türkiye (Turkish: Türkiye Cumhuriyeti[b]), is a country mainly in Anatolia in West Asia, with a smaller part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran to the east; Iraq, Syria, and the Mediterranean Sea (and Cyprus) to the south; and the Aegean Sea, Greece, and Bulgaria to the west. Turkey is home to over 85 million people; most are ethnic Turks, while ethnic Kurds are the largest ethnic minority. Officially a secular state, Turkey has a Muslim-majority population. Ankara is Turkey's capital and second-largest city; Istanbul is its largest city, and its economic and financial center, as well as the largest city in Europe. Other major cities include İzmir, Bursa, Antalya, Konya and Adana.

Human habitation began in Late Paleolithic. Home to important Neolithic sites like Göbekli Tepe and some of the earliest farming areas, present-day Turkey was inhabited by various ancient peoples. Hattians were assimilated by the incoming Anatolian peoples. Increasing diversity during Classical Anatolia transitioned into cultural Hellenization following the conquests of Alexander the Great; Hellenization continued during the Roman and Byzantine eras. The Seljuk Turks began migrating into Anatolia in the 11th century, starting the Turkification process. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rum ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, when it disintegrated into Turkish principalities. Beginning in 1299, the Ottomans united the principalities and expanded; Mehmed II conquered Istanbul in 1453. During the reigns of Selim I and Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire became a global power.

From the late 18th century onwards, the empire's power and territory declined; reforms were also made. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, persecution of Muslims during the Ottoman contraction and in the Russian Empire resulted in large-scale loss of life and mass migration into modern-day Turkey from the Balkans, Caucasus, and Crimea. The Second Constitutional Era ended with the 1913 coup d'état. Under the control of Three Pashas, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I in 1914. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Greek and Assyrian subjects. After its defeat, the Ottoman Empire was partitioned. The Turkish War of Independence resulted in the abolition of the sultanate in 1922 and the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. The Republic was proclaimed on 29 October 1923, modelled on the reforms initiated by the country's first president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

Turkey is an upper-middle-income and emerging country; its economy is the 17th- or 11th-largest in the world. It is a unitary presidential republic with a multi-party system. Turkey is a founding member of the OECD, G20, and Organization of Turkic States. With a geopolitically significant location, Turkey is a regional power and an early member of NATO. An EU-candidate, Turkey is part of the EU Customs Union, CoE, OIC, and TURKSOY. Turkey has coastal plains, a high central plateau, and various mountain ranges; its climate is temperate with harsher conditions in the interior. Home to three biodiversity hotspots, Turkey is prone to frequent earthquakes and is highly vulnerable to climate change. Turkey has universal healthcare, growing access to education, and increasing innovativeness. It has 21 UNESCO World Heritage sites, 30 UNESCO cultural heritage inscriptions, and a rich and diverse cuisine. Turkey is a leading TV content exporter and is the fourth most visited country in the world.

Name of Turkey

The name Turkey appears in Western sources after the late 11th century, referring to the Seljuk-controlled lands in Anatolia and the Near East. European writers started using Turchia for the Anatolian plateau by the end of the 12th century. The English name Turkey (from Medieval Latin Turchia/Turquia) means "land of the Turks". Middle English usage of Turkye is evidenced in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Book of the Duchess (c. 1369). The modern spelling Turkey dates back to at least 1719. The name Turkey has been used in the texts of numerous international treaties to define the Ottoman Empire.

In Byzantine sources, the name Tourkia (Greek: Τουρκία) was used for defining two medieval states: Hungary (Western Tourkia); and Khazaria (Eastern Tourkia).

With the Treaty of Alexandropol, the name Türkiye entered international documents for the first time. In the treaty signed with Afghanistan in 1921, the expression Devlet-i Âliyye-i Türkiyye ('Sublime Turkish State') was used, likened to the Ottoman Empire's name.

In December 2021, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issued a circular, calling for exports to be labeled "Made in Türkiye". The circular also stated that in relation to other governmental communications, the "necessary sensitivity will be shown on the use of the phrase 'Türkiye' instead of phrases such as 'Turkey' (in English)". The reason given was that Türkiye "represents and expresses the culture, civilization, and values of the Turkish nation in the best way". In May 2022, the Turkish government requested the United Nations and other international organizations to use Türkiye officially in English, which the UN immediately agreed to do.

History

Prehistory of Anatolia and Prehistory of Southeastern Europe

Some henges at Göbekli Tepe were erected as far back as 9600 BC, predating those of Stonehenge by over seven millennia.

The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, has been inhabited by modern humans since the late Paleolithic period. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has been inhabited since at least 40,000 years ago and is known to have been in the Neolithic era by about 6000 BC. The spread of agriculture from the Middle East to Europe was strongly correlated with the migration of early farmers from Anatolia about 9,000 years ago and was not just a cultural exchange. Anatolian Neolithic farmers derived a significant portion of their ancestry from the Anatolian hunter-gatherers.

The Sphinx Gate of Hattusa, the capital of the Hittites

The Temple of Zeus in the ancient city of Aizanoi in Phrygia

Present-day Turkey contains some of the world's oldest Neolithic sites. Göbekli Tepe is the site of the oldest known man-made structure in the world, a temple dating to c. 9600 BC, while Çatalhöyük is a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in Anatolia, which existed c. 7500 – c. 5700 BC. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date. The Urfa Man statue is dated c. 9000 BC, to the period of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, and is defined as "the oldest known naturalistic life-sized sculpture of a human". Troy was first settled in the Neolithic Age, with habitation continuing into the Byzantine period. Troy's Late Bronze Age layers are considered potential historical settings for the later legends of the Trojan War.

The earliest recorded inhabitants of Anatolia were the Hattians and Hurrians, non-Indo-European peoples who lived in Anatolia as early as c. 2300 BC. Indo-European Hittites came to Anatolia and gradually absorbed the Hattians and Hurrians c. 2000 – c. 1700 BC. Various other ancient Anatolian populations have also lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family. Given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The first empire in the area was founded by the Hittites, from the 18th through the 13th centuries BC. The Assyrians conquered and settled parts of southeastern Turkey as early as 1950 BC although they have remained a minority in the region.

Following the collapse of the Hittite empire c. 1180 BC, the Phrygians, an Indo-European people, achieved ascendancy in Anatolia until their kingdom was destroyed by the Cimmerians in c. 695 BC. The most powerful of Phrygia's successor states were Lydia, Caria and Lycia.

Assyrian king Shalmaneser I (1263–1234 BC) recorded a campaign in which he subdued the entire territory of "Uruatri". Urartu re-emerged in Assyrian inscriptions in the 9th century BC. Starting from 714 BC, the Urartu state began to decline and finally dissolved in 590 BC when it was conquered by the Medes.

Antiquity

Classical Anatolia and Hellenistic period

The Sebasteion of Aphrodisias, a city named after Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of beauty. In 2017, it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list.

The Library of Celsus in Ephesus was built by the Romans in 114–117.

Before 1200 BC, there were four Greek-speaking settlements in Anatolia, including Miletus. Around 1000 BC, Greek migrations to the west coast of Anatolia began; influence of Greek communities were largely limited to these areas until the time of Alexander the Great. These settlements were grouped as Aeolis, Ionia, and Doris, after the specific Greek groups that settled them. Numerous important cities were founded by these colonists, such as Ephesus, Halicarnassus, Pergamon, Aphrodisias, Smyrna (now İzmir) and Byzantium (now Istanbul), the latter founded by Greek colonists from Megara in c. 667 BC. Some of these cities, in particular Miletus, went on to found numerous colonies of their own on the coasts of the Black Sea. Miletus was also home to the Ionian school of philosophy, and many of the most prominent pre-Socratic philosophers lived in Miletus. Thales of Miletus is regarded as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition and is also historically recognized as the first individual known to have engaged in scientific philosophy. Two of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, and the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, were located in Anatolia.

The Armenian Orontid dynasty, which included parts of what is now eastern Turkey, began in the 6th century BC. In northwestern Turkey, the most significant tribal group in ancient Thrace was the Odyrisians, founded by Teres I.

All of modern-day Turkey was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire during the 6th century BC. The Greco-Persian Wars started when the Greek city-states on the coast of Anatolia rebelled against Persian rule in 499 BC. Queen Artemisia I of Halicarnassus, which was then within the Achaemenid satrapy of Caria, fought as an ally of Xerxes I, King of Persia, against the independent Greek city-states during the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC.

Anatolia fell to Alexander the Great in 334 BC, which led to increasing cultural homogeneity and Hellenization in the area, which met resistance in some places.] Following Alexander's death in 323 BC, Anatolia was subsequently divided into smaller Hellenistic kingdoms, all of which became part of the Roman Republic by the mid-1st century BC. Hellenization accelerated under Roman rule, and by the early centuries of the Christian Era the local Anatolian languages and cultures had become extinct, being largely replaced by ancient Greek language and culture.

From the 1st century BC up to the 3rd century AD, large parts of modern-day Turkey were contested between the Romans and neighboring Parthians through the Roman-Parthian Wars. Galatia was an ancient area in the highlands of central Anatolia inhabited by the Celts. The term "Galatians" came to be used by the Greeks for the three Celtic peoples of Anatolia: the Tectosages, the Trocmii, and the Tolistobogii. By the 1st century BC the Celts had become so Hellenized that some Greek writers called them Hellenogalatai. The Kingdom of Pontus was a Hellenistic kingdom, centered in the historical region of Pontus and ruled by the Mithridatic dynasty of Persian origin, which may have been directly related to Darius the Great. The kingdom was proclaimed by Mithridates I in 281 BC and lasted until its conquest by the Romans in 63 BC. Pontus reached its largest extent under Mithridates VI the Great, who conquered Colchis, Cappadocia, Bithynia, and the Greek colonies of the Tauric Chersonesos. After a long struggle with Rome in the Mithridatic Wars, Pontus was defeated. All ancient regions and territories corresponding to modern Turkey eventually became part of the Roman Empire, and many of them retained their historic names in classical antiquity as Roman provinces.

Early Christian and Roman period

Christianity in Turkey

The Roman Empire at the time of Constantine the Great's death in 337. In 330, Constantinople (now Istanbul) became the new Roman capital.

According to the Acts of Apostles, Antioch (now Antakya), a city in southern Turkey, is where the followers of Jesus were first called "Christians". The city quickly became an important center of Christianity. The Apostle Paul of Tarsus traveled to Ephesus and stayed there, probably working as a tentmaker. He is claimed to have performed miracles and organized missionary activity in other regions. Paul left Ephesus after an attack from a local silversmith resulted in a pro-Artemis riot.

According to extrabiblical traditions, the Assumption of Mary took place in Ephesus, where Apostle John was also present. Irenaeus writes of "the church of Ephesus, founded by Paul, with John continuing with them until the times of Trajan." While in Ephesus, Apostle John wrote the three epistles attributed to him. The Basilica of St. John near Ephesus, built by Justinian the Great in the 6th century, marks the burial site of Apostle John, while the nearby House of the Virgin Mary is accepted by the Catholic church as the place where Mary, mother of Jesus, lived the final days of her life before her Assumption. Saint Nicholas, born in Patara, lived in nearby Myra (modern Demre) in Lycia.

In 123, Roman emperor Hadrian traveled to Anatolia. Numerous monuments were erected for his arrival, and he met his lover Antinous from Bithynia. Hadrian focused on the Greek revival and built several temples and improved the cities. Cyzicus, Pergamon, Smyrna, Ephesus and Sardes were promoted as regional centres for the Imperial cult during this period.

Byzantine period

Byzantine Anatolia

The Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (now Istanbul) was built by the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian the Great in 532–537.

After defeating Licinius (the senior co-emperor (augustus) of the East in Nicomedia) at the Battle of Chrysopolis (Üsküdar) in 324 (thus bringing an end to the Tetrarchy system and becoming the sole emperor), Constantine the Great chose the nearby city of Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire and started rebuilding and expanding the city. In 330 he officially proclaimed it as the new Roman capital with the name New Rome (Nova Roma) but soon afterwards renamed it Constantinople (Constantinopolis, modern Istanbul). Under Constantine, Christianity did not become the official religion of the state, but Christianity enjoyed imperial preference since he supported it with generous privileges.

The Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire in 555 under Justinian the Great, at its greatest extent since the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476.

Theodosius the Great made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire with the Edict of Thessalonica in 380. Following the death of Theodosius in 395 and the permanent division of the Roman Empire between his two sons, Constantinople became the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. This empire, which would later be branded by historians as the Byzantine Empire, ruled most of the territory of present-day Turkey until the Late Middle Ages; although the eastern regions remained firmly in Sasanian hands until the 7th century. The frequent Byzantine-Sassanid Wars, a continuation of the centuries-long Roman-Persian Wars, took place between the 4th and 7th centuries.

Several ecumenical councils of the early Church were held in cities located in present-day Turkey, including the First Council of Nicaea (Iznik) in 325 (which resulted in the first uniform Christian doctrine, called the Nicene Creed), the First Council of Constantinople in 381, the Council of Ephesus in 431, and the Council of Chalcedon in 451. During most of its existence, the Byzantine Empire was one of the most powerful economic, cultural, and military forces in Europe. Established in the Roman period, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople is the oldest continuously active institution in Istanbul.

Seljuk and Anatolian beyliks period

Seljuk Empire, Sultanate of Rum, and Anatolian beyliks

İnce Minareli Medrese in Konya (left), Çifte Minareli Medrese in Erzurum (center) and Divriği Great Mosque and Hospital (right) are among the finest examples of Seljuk architecture.

According to historians and linguists, the Proto-Turkic language originated in Central-East Asia. Initially, Proto-Turkic speakers were potentially both hunter-gatherers and farmers; they later became nomadic pastoralists. Early and medieval Turkic groups exhibited a wide range of both East Asian and West-Eurasian physical appearances and genetic origins, in part through long-term contact with neighboring peoples such as Iranic, Mongolic, Tocharian, Uralic, and Yeniseian peoples. During the 9th and 10th centuries CE, the Oghuz were a Turkic group that lived in the Caspian and Aral steppes. Partly due to pressure from the Kipchaks, the Oghuz migrated into Iran and Transoxiana. They mixed with Iranic-speaking groups in the area and converted to Islam. Oghuz Turks were also known as Turkoman.

The Seljuks originated from the Kınık branch of the Oghuz Turks who resided in the Yabgu Khaganate. In 1040, the Seljuks defeated the Ghaznavids at the Battle of Dandanaqan and established the Seljuk Empire in Greater Khorasan. Baghdad, the Abbasid Caliphate's capital and center of the Islamic world, was taken by Seljuks in 1055. Given the role Khurasani traditions played in art, culture, and political traditions in the empire, the Seljuk period is described as a mixture of "Turkish, Persian and Islamic influences". In the latter half of the 11th century, the Seljuk Turks began penetrating into medieval Armenia and Anatolia. At the time, Anatolia was a diverse and largely Greek-speaking region after previously being Hellenized.

The Seljuk Turks defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, and later established the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum. During this period, there were also Turkish principalities such as Danishmendids. Seljuk arrival started the Turkification process in Anatolia; there were Turkic/Turkish migrations, intermarriages, and conversions into Islam. The shift took several centuries and happened gradually. Members of Islamic mysticism orders, such as Mevlevi Order, played a role in the Islamization of the diverse people of Anatolia. In 13th century, there was a second significant wave of Turkic migration, as people fled Mongol expansion. Seljuk sultanate was defeated by the Mongols at the Battle of Köse Dağ in 1243 and disappeared by the beginning of the 14th century. It was replaced by various Turkish principalities.

Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire at its greatest European extent, in 1683, during the Battle of Vienna

Based around Söğüt, Ottoman Beylik was founded by Osman I in the early 14th century. According to Ottoman chroniclers, Osman descended from the Kayı tribe of the Oghuz Turks. Ottomans started annexing the nearby Turkish beyliks (principalities) in Anatolia and expanded into the Balkans. Mehmed II completed Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine Empire by capturing its capital, Constantinople, on 29 May 1453. Selim I united Anatolia under Ottoman rule. Turkification continued as Ottomans mixed with various indigenous people in Anatolia and the Balkans.

The Ottoman Empire was a global power during the reigns of Selim I and Suleiman the Magnificent. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Sephardic Jews moved into Ottoman Empire following their expulsion from Spain. From the second half of the 18th century onwards, the Ottoman Empire began to decline. The Tanzimat reforms, initiated by Mahmud II in 1839, aimed to modernize the Ottoman state in line with the progress that had been made in Western Europe. The efforts of Midhat Pasha during the late Tanzimat era led the Ottoman constitutional movement of 1876, which introduced the First Constitutional Era, but these efforts proved to be inadequate in most fields, and failed to stop the dissolution of the empire.

The Süleymaniye Mosque is the largest Ottoman imperial mosque in Istanbul, located on the Third Hill in the city's historical peninsula. The mosque was commissioned by Suleiman the Magnificent and designed by the imperial architect Mimar Sinan.

As the empire gradually shrank in size, military power and wealth; especially after the Ottoman economic crisis and default in 1875 which led to uprisings in the Balkan provinces that culminated in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878); many Balkan Muslims migrated to the empire's heartland in Anatolia, along with the Circassians fleeing the Russian conquest of the Caucasus. According to some estimates, 800,000 Muslim Circassians died during the Circassian genocide in the territory of present-day Russia, the survivors of which sought refuge in the Ottoman Empire, mostly settling in the provinces of present-day Turkey. The decline of the Ottoman Empire led to a rise in nationalist sentiment among its various subject peoples, leading to increased ethnic tensions which occasionally burst into violence, such as the Hamidian massacres of Armenians, which claimed up to 300,000 lives.

Ottoman territories in Europe (Rumelia) were lost in the First Balkan War (1912–1913). Ottomans managed to recover some territory in Europe, such as Edirne, in the Second Balkan War (1913). In the 19th and early 20th centuries, persecution of Muslims during the Ottoman contraction and in the Russian Empire resulted in estimated 5 million deaths, with more than 3 million in Balkans; the casualties included Turks. Five to seven or seven to nine million refugees migrated into modern-day Turkey from the Balkans, Caucasus, Crimea, and Mediterranean islands, shifting the center of the Ottoman Empire to Anatolia. In addition to a small number of Jews, the refugees were overwhelmingly Muslim; they were both Turkish and non-Turkish people, such as Circassians and Crimean Tatars. Paul Mojzes has called the Balkan Wars an "unrecognized genocide", where multiple sides were both victims and perpetrators.

Topkapı Palace and Dolmabahçe Palace were the primary residences of the Ottoman sultans in Istanbul between 1465 and 1856 and 1856 to 1922, respectively.

Following the 1913 coup d'état, the Three Pashas took control of the Ottoman government. The Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers and was ultimately defeated. During the war, the empire's Armenian subjects were deported to Syria as part of the Armenian genocide. As a result, an estimated 600,000 to more than 1 million, or up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed. The Turkish government has refused to acknowledge the events as genocide and states that Armenians were only "relocated" from the eastern war zone. Genocidal campaigns were also committed against the empire's other minority groups such as the Assyrians and Greeks. Following the Armistice of Mudros in 1918, the victorious Allied Powers sought the partition of the Ottoman Empire through the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres.

Republic of Turkey

Republic of Turkey

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and the first President of the Turkish Republic

The occupation of Istanbul (1918) and İzmir (1919) by the Allies in the aftermath of World War I initiated the Turkish National Movement. Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha, a military commander who had distinguished himself during the Battle of Gallipoli, the Turkish War of Independence (1919–1923) was waged with the aim of revoking the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres (1920).

The Turkish Provisional Government in Ankara, which had declared itself the legitimate government of the country on 23 April 1920, started to formalize the legal transition from the old Ottoman into the new Republican political system. The Ankara Government engaged in armed and diplomatic struggle. In 1921–1923, the Armenian, Greek, French, and British armies had been expelled: The military advance and diplomatic success of the Ankara Government resulted in the signing of the Armistice of Mudanya on 11 October 1922. The handling of the Chanak Crisis (September–October 1922) between the United Kingdom and the Ankara Government caused the collapse of David Lloyd George's Ministry on 19 October 1922 and political autonomy of Canada from the UK. On 1 November 1922, the Turkish Parliament in Ankara formally abolished the Sultanate, thus ending 623 years of monarchical Ottoman rule.

The Treaty of Lausanne of 24 July 1923, which superseded the Treaty of Sèvres, led to the international recognition of the sovereignty of the new Turkish state as the successor state of the Ottoman Empire. On 4 October 1923, the Allied occupation of Turkey ended with the withdrawal of the last Allied troops from Istanbul. The Turkish Republic was officially proclaimed on 29 October 1923 in Ankara, the country's new capital. The Lausanne Convention stipulated a population exchange between Greece and Turkey.

Anıtkabir in Ankara was completed in 1953 to become the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Mustafa Kemal became the republic's first president and introduced many reforms. The reforms aimed to transform the old religion-based and multi-communal Ottoman monarchy into a Turkish nation state that would be governed as a parliamentary republic under a secular constitution. With the Surname Law of 1934, the Turkish Parliament bestowed upon Kemal the honorific surname "Atatürk" (Father Turk). Atatürk's reforms caused discontent in some Kurdish and Zaza tribes leading to the Sheikh Said rebellion in 1925 and the Dersim rebellion in 1937.

İsmet İnönü became the country's second president following Atatürk's death in 1938. In 1939, the Republic of Hatay voted in favor of joining Turkey with a referendum. Turkey remained neutral during most of World War II but entered the war on the side of the Allies on 23 February 1945. Later that year, Turkey became a charter member of the United Nations. In 1950 Turkey became a member of the Council of Europe. After fighting as part of the UN forces in the Korean War, Turkey joined NATO in 1952, becoming a bulwark against Soviet expansion into the Mediterranean.

The country's transition to multi-party democracy was interrupted by military coups in 1960 and 1980, as well as by military memorandums in 1971 and 1997. Between 1960 and the end of the 20th century, the prominent leaders in Turkish politics who achieved multiple election victories were Süleyman Demirel, Bülent Ecevit and Turgut Özal. Tansu Çiller became the first female prime minister of Turkey in 1993.

Tansu Çiller, Turkey's first female prime minister, attends a European Commission meeting in January 1994

Turkey applied for full membership of the EEC in 1987, joined the European Union Customs Union in 1995 and started accession negotiations with the European Union in 2005. In a non-binding vote on 13 March 2019, the European Parliament called on the EU governments to suspend EU accession talks with Turkey, citing violations of human rights and the rule of law; but the negotiations, effectively on hold since 2018, remain active as of 2023.

In 2014, prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan won Turkey's first direct presidential election. On 15 July 2016, an unsuccessful coup attempt tried to oust the government. With a referendum in 2017, the parliamentary republic was replaced by an executive presidential system. The office of the prime minister was abolished, and its powers and duties were transferred to the president. On the referendum day, while the voting was still underway, the Supreme Electoral Council lifted a rule that required each ballot to have an official stamp. The opposition parties claimed that as many as 2.5 million ballots without a stamp were accepted as valid.

Web References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey