The New Crossroads of History
Ten things you didn't know about Turkey.
BY ANDREW FINKEL | APRIL 9, 2012
No walls fell in Turkey at the end of the Cold War; there was no color-coded revolution. Yet, arguably, the country is in the throes of a transformation as profound as those of its neighbors. A country that once served as a lonely sentinel on NATO's southern flank is now at the center of a new and evolving region. And a Turkish economy that for decades tried to shed the yoke of high interest rates and chronic inflation has, in the last two years, been the fastest-growing in Europe. In fact, Turkey's GDP growth in 2011 (8.5 percent) wasn't far behind China's. Turkey is now in the process of rewriting its constitution and wrestling with demons that include a legacy of military intervention and a long denial of Kurdish diversity.
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