The country is now referred to as “Turkey” in the halls of the United Nations, which agreed on Wednesday to recognize the change after a request from the Turkish government. The rebranding campaign to Turkey started in December.
In the letter addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Cavusoglu wrote: “I would like to inform you that according to the Presidential Bulletin … issued on December 2, 2021, on the use of the word ‘Turkey’ in foreign languages and subsequent branding strategy, the Government of the Republic of Turkey from now Onwards, you will use ‘Türkiye’ to replace words such as ‘Turkey’, ‘Turkei’ and ‘Turquie’ that were used in the past to refer to the Republic from Turkey.
The UN spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, told CNN on Thursday that the change was accepted by the UN and will take effect once the request is received and the document is validated, on Wednesday.
“That’s not a problem, we don’t have to accept it or not,” Dujarric said. “Countries are free to choose what they want to call them. This does not happen every day, but it is not uncommon for countries to change their names.”
“One of the things that comes to my mind is Ivory Coast, which was called Ivory Coast in English and was called Ivory Coast,” the spokesperson added.
Cavusoglu told the state-run Anadolu Agency on Wednesday that the government had successfully laid the groundwork for the rebranding by working with the Turkish Communications Directorate, which is under the presidential cabinet. “We have made it possible for the United Nations, other international organizations and countries to see this change using the Turkish language,” he said.
Turkey’s Director of Communications, Fahrettin Altun, posted a promotional video on Twitter on Wednesday with the caption: #HelloTürkiye.
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