Modern Turkey is what is left of the dismembered Ottoman Empire. Since it is composed of a variety of tribes, religions, languages, and ethnicities, it is susceptible to even further disintegration.
Modern Turkey was founded following the abolishment of the last
Ottoman Caliphate by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (the ‘Father of Turks’) in
1924. Atatürk served as President of Turkey from 1923 to 1938 and
modernized the country in terms of justice and education; he changed the
Turkish alphabet from a modified and difficult to learn Arabic script
that few were literate in to a near-universally understood Latin form;
and he attempted to introduce a European way of life.
In reality, however, Turkey remained a west Asian, Islamic country
that was never able to achieve the European identity that Atatürk
dreamed of.
In the last 30 years, Turkey had several opportunities to set a
course towards a realistic and stable relationship with the European
Union. Western Europeans saw in Turkey a large growing market where they
could sell their products and a metropolis of several million Turks who
migrated to Europe as cheap labor. Europeans wanted Turkey close, but
not in Europe.
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Turkey triggers the final dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire | New Europe
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