Research Paper
"What is Prohibiting Turkey from Entering the EU?"
Introduction
Each time the desired goal of Turkey becoming an EU member has seemed to be within reach, a new obstacle has sprung up... Why is this?
Let us first take a brief look at the economy, culture, religion, geography, foreign relations, government and politics of Turkey.
The region comprising modern Turkey is one of the oldest continually inhabited regions in the world, because of its strategic location at the intersection of Asia and Europe. Turkey is subdivided into 81 provinces. Each province is divided into districts. The capital city of Turkey is Ankara, but the historic capital Istanbul remains the financial, economic and cultural centre of the country. Turkey's area inclusive of lakes is 814,578 square kilometers (314,510 sq mi), of which 790,200 square kilometers (305,098 sq mi) occupies the Anatolian peninsula (also called Asia Minor) in Western Asia, and 3% or 24,378 square kilometers (9,412 sq mi) are located in Europe. Many geographers consider Turkey politically in Europe, although it is rather a transcontinental country between Asia and Europe. Turkey forms a bridge between Europe and Asia, with the division between the two running from the Black Sea (Karadeniz) to the north down along the Bosporus (Istanbul Bogazi) strait through the Sea of Marmara (Marmara Denizi) and the Dardanelles (Çanakkale Bogazi) strait to the Aegean Sea (Ege Denizi) and the larger Mediterranean Sea (Akdeniz) to the south (Country Profile).
The politics of Turkey takes place within a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic, in which the Prime Minister of Turkey is the head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party sys ...