With the birth of the Turkish Republic after the First World War, St. Sophia became a museum, and the ancient mosaics, which were plastered over by the Moslems, whose religion forbids pictures in holy places, have been restored.

* Ada TV, broadcasts in both satellite and terrestrial in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

However, following the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, Anatolia was defined by the Turkish government as being effectively co-terminous with Asian Turkey.

The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognized only by Turkey, occupies the northern one-third of the island.

The Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 de facto partitioned the island into two political areas: 99. 5 % of Greek Cypriots now live in the Republic of Cyprus, while 98. 7 % of Turkish Cypriots live in Northern Cyprus ( of other nationalities, 99. 2 % live in the Greek Cypriot area in the south ).

Since 1974, the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus has controlled the south two thirds, and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus the northern one-third.

In 1983, the Turkish Cypriots declared an independent state called the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus ( TRNC ), an action opposed by the United Nations Security Council.

Turkey, which does not recognise the Republic of Cyprus, and the Turkish Cypriot administration of the northern part of the island, do not accept the Republic's rule over the whole island and refer to it not by its international name, but as the " Greek Cypriot Administration of Southern Cyprus ".

In 1983, the Turkish Cypriots declared an independent " Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus ", which has never been recognized by any country except Turkey and Pakistan.

For information pertaining to this, see Politics of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

On 15 November 1983 the Turkish Cypriot North declared independence and the formation of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus ( TRNC ), which has been recognized only by Turkey.

After the creation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the Turkish government began to formally object to the use of Constantinople in other languages and ask that others use the more common name for the city.

Prominent issues in Hellenic foreign policy include the claims in the Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean by Turkey, the Turkish occupation of Cyprus, the dispute over the name of the Republic of Macedonia ( recognized under the provisional denomination of " former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia "), and relations with the United States and Russia.

With the Turkey | Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk at the celebration ceremony for the tenth anniversary of the Turkish Republic.

* border Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus ( disputed )

* 1983 – Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is founded.

After the international recognition of the new Turkish parliament headquartered in Ankara, by means of the Treaty of Lausanne signed on 24 July 1923, the Turkish parliament proclaimed on 29 October 1923 the establishment of the Republic of Turkey as the new Turkish State that succeeded and formally ended the defunct Ottoman Empire, in line with the treaty.

Cyprus: population growth 1961-2003 ( numbers for the entire island, excluding in recent years some 150, 000 Turkish immigrants residing in Northern Cyprus ).

Since Turkey's invasion and continued occupation of Cyprus in 1974, following ethnic clashes and turmoil on the island, an administration recognized by Turkey only was declared in 1983 – the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

In the aftermath, Turkish Cypriots declared a separate political entity in the form of the Turkish Federative State of Cyprus in 1975 and by 1983 made a unilateral declaration of independence as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which was recognised only by Turkey.

The other states with limited recognition such as Somaliland and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus ( TRNC ) also route their mail through third countries because the UPU will not allow direct international deliveries.

: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Burma, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Syria, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Gaza Strip under Palestinian Authority ; Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus ( internationally unrecognised )

Descendants of Turkish rulers also exist in Northern India.

The de facto state of Northern Cyprus was proclaimed in 1975 under the name " Turkish Federated State of Northern Cyprus ".

The only country to formally recognise The " Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus " is Turkey.

* 1974 – The second Turkish invasion of Cyprus begins ; 140, 000 to 200, 000 Greek Cypriots become refugees.

* 1996 – Greek Cypriot refugee Solomos Solomou is murdered by Turkish forces while trying to climb a flagpole in order to remove a Turkish flag from its mast in the United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus.

The two mountain ranges run generally parallel to the Taurus Mountains on the Turkish mainland, the outlines of which are visible from northern Cyprus.

Vasea of Cyprus are broadly divided into two main ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, who share many customs but maintain distinct identities based on ethnicity, religion, language, and close ties with their respective motherlands.

Before the dispute started in 1964 the peoples of Cyprus ( then 77 % Greek Cypriots, 18 % Turkish Cypriots, 5 % other nationalities, including Armenians and Maronites ) were dispersed over the entire island.

Turkey responded by launching a military operation on Cyprus in a move not approved by the other two international guarantor powers, Greece and the United Kingdom using as a pretext the protection of the Turkish minority from Greek militias.

The invasion is called " Cyprus Peace Operation " by the Turkish side.

And, after becoming the right-hand man of Enver Pasha, he is sent by the latter to pave the way for a new Turkish Empire embracing `` the union of all Turks throughout Central Asia from Adrianople to the Chinese oases on the Silk Trade Route ''.

The Osmanli ruler Osman I was the first Turkish ruler who minted coins in his own name in 1320s, for it bears the legend " Minted by Osman son of Ertugul ".

During the war, the Azeri armed forces were also aided by Turkish military advisers, and Russian, Ukrainian, Chechen and Afghan mercenaries.

* 1898 – 700 Greek civilians, 17 British guards and the British Consul of Crete are killed by a Turkish mob in Heraklion, Greece.

The reign of Ahmed III, which had lasted for twenty-seven years, although marked by the disasters of the Great Turkish War, was not unsuccessful.

He was a cultivated patron of literature and art, and it was in his time that the first printing press authorized to use the Arabic or Turkish languages was set up in Constantinople, operated by Ibrahim Muteferrika ( while the printing press had been introduced to Constantinople in 1480, all works published before 1729 were in Greek, Armenian, or Hebrew ).

This episode was taken up by the modern Turkish writer Nedim Gürsel and made into the setting of his 2001 novel Le voyage de Candide à Istanbul.

This was because in 1448, while Skanderbeg was victoriously fighting off the Turkish invasions, three military columns, commanded by Demetrio Reres along with his sons Giorgio and Basilio, were dispatched to help Alfonso V defeat the barons of Naples who had rebelled against him.

Leonhart Rauwolff, in AD 1574, found it " divided ... into two towns ," the one " Turkish ," " so surrounded by the river, that you cannot go into it but by boats ," the other, much larger, on the Arabian side of the river.

After the failure of the co-emperor Michael IX to stem the Turkish advance in Asia Minor in 1302 and the disastrous Battle of Bapheus, the Byzantine government hired the Catalan Company of Almogavars ( adventurers from Aragon and Catalonia ) led by Roger de Flor to clear Byzantine Asia Minor of the enemy.

* 1826 – The 10, 500 inhabitants of the Greek town Missolonghi start leaving the town after a year's siege by Turkish forces.

All the supplies of grain of Nauplia and Monemvasia had now to be imported from Turkish possessions, while corsairs rendered dangerous all traffic by sea.

The city was known as Afyon ( opium ), until the name was changed to Afyonkarahisar by the Turkish Parliament in 2004.

During the Greco-Turkish War ( 1919-1922 ) campaign ( part of the Turkish War of Independence ) Afyon and the surrounding hills were occupied by French, Italian and then Greek forces.

* 1915 – World War I: The Battle of Gallipoli begins — The invasion of the Turkish Gallipoli Peninsula by Australian, British, French and New Zealand troops begins with landings at Anzac Cove and Cape Helles.

According to the plans, the Third Army, under general Radko Dimitriev, was deployed east of and behind the First, and was covered by the cavalry division hiding it from the Turkish view.

The initial Bulgarian attack by First and Third Army defeated the Turkish forces, numbering some 130, 000, and reached the Sea of Marmara.

New Turkish forces landed at Bulair and Şarköy but after heavy fighting they were crushed and overthrown by the newly formed 4th Bulgarian army under the command of General Stiliyan Kovachev.

This incident, coupled with Stalin's demands for the restitution of the Turkish provinces of Kars, Artvin and Ardahan to the Soviet Union ( which were lost by Turkey with the Russo – Turkish War of 1877 – 1878, but were regained with the Treaty of Kars in 1921 ) was one of the main reasons why Turkey decided to give up its general principle of neutrality in foreign affairs.