Turkey Officially Changes Name at UN to 'Turkiye'

A Turkish flag with the Bosphorus Bridge in the background, flies on a passenger ferry in Istanbul, Turkey September 30, 2020. (Reuters)
A Turkish flag with the Bosphorus Bridge in the background, flies on a passenger ferry in Istanbul, Turkey September 30, 2020. (Reuters)
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Turkey Officially Changes Name at UN to 'Turkiye'

A Turkish flag with the Bosphorus Bridge in the background, flies on a passenger ferry in Istanbul, Turkey September 30, 2020. (Reuters)
A Turkish flag with the Bosphorus Bridge in the background, flies on a passenger ferry in Istanbul, Turkey September 30, 2020. (Reuters)

Turkey has told the United Nations that, at the behest of its president, it wishes from now on to be called "Turkiye" in all languages, the UN announced Thursday.

"The change is immediate," Stephane Dujarric, the UN chief's spokesperson, told AFP by email.

He noted that Ankara's official letter requesting the change had been received at the UN's New York headquarters on Wednesday.

The day before, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavasoglu had tweeted a photo of himself signing the letter, addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

"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 added that the change would bring to an end the process of "increasing the brand value of our country," an initiative started by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has led the country for almost two decades.

Over the past few years, the country has sought to change the branding on its products from "made in Turkey" to "made in Turkiye."

In addition to making the UN's nomenclature match how the nation is spelled in Turkish, the update would also help distinguish the country from the bird of the same name in English.

"The name change may seem silly to some but it puts Erdogan in the role of protector, of safeguarding international respect for the country," Georgetown University professor Mustafa Aksakal was quoted as saying in The New York Times.

The newspaper also noted that the move comes ahead of next year's presidential election as well as the centenary of the nation's founding after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.



Iran Says it Would Resume Nuclear Talks with US if Guaranteed No Further Attacks

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi attends a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia June 23, 2025. Sputnik/Sergei Karpukhin/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi attends a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia June 23, 2025. Sputnik/Sergei Karpukhin/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
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Iran Says it Would Resume Nuclear Talks with US if Guaranteed No Further Attacks

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi attends a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia June 23, 2025. Sputnik/Sergei Karpukhin/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi attends a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia June 23, 2025. Sputnik/Sergei Karpukhin/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

Iran’s foreign minister said Saturday that his country would accept a resumption of nuclear talks with the US if there were assurances of no more attacks against it, state media reported.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a speech to Tehran-based foreign diplomats that Iran has always been ready and will be ready in the future for talks about its nuclear program, but, “assurance should be provided that in case of a resumption of talks, the trend will not lead to war.”

Referring to the 12-day Israeli bombardment of Iran's nuclear and military sites, and the US strike on June 22, Araghchi said that if the US and others wish to resume talks with Iran, "first of all, there should be a firm guarantee that such actions will not be repeated. The attack on Iran's nuclear facilities has made it more difficult and complicated to achieve a solution based on negotiations.”

Following the strikes, Iran suspended cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, which led to the departure of inspectors.

Araghchi said that under Iranian law, the country will answer the agency’s request for cooperation "case by case,” based on Iran’s interests. He also said any inspection by the agency should be done based on Iran's “security” concerns as well as the safety of the inspectors. “The risk of proliferation of radioactive ingredients and an explosion of ammunition that remains from the war in the attacked nuclear sites is serious,” he said.

"The risk of spreading radioactive materials and the risk of exploding leftover munitions ... are serious," he added.

"For us, IAEA inspectors approaching nuclear sites has both a security aspect ... and the safety of the inspectors themselves is a matter that must be examined."

He also reiterated Iran's position on the need to continue enriching uranium on its soil. US President Donald Trump has insisted that cannot happen.

Israel claims it acted because Tehran was within reach of a nuclear weapon. US intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency had assessed Iran last had an organized nuclear weapons program in 2003, though Tehran had been enriching uranium up to 60% — a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in an interview published Monday said the US airstrikes so badly damaged his country’s nuclear facilities that Iranian authorities still have not been able to access them to survey the destruction.