Turkey officially changes Name to Turkiye at UN
Turkey has informed the United Nations that, at the request of its president, it now desires to be referred to as “Turkiye” in all languages.
“The change is immediate,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told AFP via email.
Ankara’s official letter demanding the modification was received at the UN’s New York headquarters on Wednesday, he stated.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavasoglu had tweeted a photo of himself signing the letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres the day before.
“We are registering our country’s name in foreign languages at the UN as ‘Turkiye,’” he wrote, with an umlaut above the “u.”
He went on to say that the shift will put an end to the process of “increasing the brand value of our country,” which was initiated by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been in power for over two decades.
The government has attempted to modify the branding on its products from “made in Turkey” to “made in Turkiye” in recent years.
The upgrade would help separate the country from the bird of the same name in English, as well as make the UN’s nomenclature resemble how the country is spelled in Turkish.
The New York Times quoted Georgetown University professor Mustafa Aksakal as saying, “The name change may seem silly to some, but it puts Erdogan in the role of protector, of safeguarding international respect for the country.”
The move comes ahead of next year’s presidential election as well as the centennial of the country’s creation following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, according to the daily.
