The UN declared on Thursday that Turkey has informed the UN 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 posted a photo of himself signing the letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres the day before.
“With the letter I sent to the UN Secretary General today, we are registering our country’s name in foreign languages at the UN as ‘Turkiye,’” he wrote, including an umlaut over 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”, a project initiated by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been in power for over two decades.
The government has attempted to modify the labelling 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 spelt in Turkish.
The New York Times reported Georgetown University professor Mustafa Aksakal as stating, “The name change may seem silly to some but it puts Erdogan in the role of protector, of safeguarding international respect for the country,”
To read our blog on “Prime Minister intends to increase trade with Turkey,” click here.
