The Canadian government has silently changed the name Turkey to the official spelling in Turkish, Türkiye, on all official documents and communications.
By Akansha Gupta
10/07/2022
Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government requested to change Turkey’s common name to Türkiye. It wishes for the international community to recognize the traditional spelling of the country’s name.
Canada agrees with the inclination of the Republic of Turkey on no longer wanting to associate their country’s name with one of the Thanksgiving and Christmas main dishes.
On May 31, 2022, Ankara, Turkey’s capital, requested the United Nations for the common name to be removed from all official documents. In December last year, Erdogan ordered all exported products to be labeled as “Made in Türkiye ” to reflect the nation’s culture.
Erdogan argued his request by citing the spelling and pronunciation change in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, formerly named Keiv, up until September 2020.
In communications from Global affairs this week, Ottawa reverted the nation’s name-changing request. However, the UN has agreed to the name changing of Turkey to Türkiye and helping the nation to rebrand.
The nation now will be spelled as Türkiye (Tur-ka-yay) on all international documents and forums. UN spokesman Stephane Dujjaric received the letter of request from Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkish foreign minister, addressed to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Spokesman Dujjaric claimed that the request was quickly out in action, and they have been successful in implementing the change together with the Directorate of Communications.
After the newly established Republic declared its independence in 1923 and elected Mustafa Kemal as its first leader, the nation adopted the name Türkiye. Cambridge dictionary defines turkey as a stupid person or failure. The Turkish administration is overjoyed that the UN has granted its demands and that they can remove their nation’s name with such an unflattering association of words.
While some people support the rebranding and appreciate the measures, others regard this as baseless and consider it a failed distraction from upcoming elections next year. However, arguably a country should be free to identify on its terms.
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