Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – Turkey’s request to change its official name accredited to the United Nations to become “Türkiye” instead of “Turkey” sparked an interaction among activists on social media.
The United Nations spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said in a statement to CNN, Thursday, that the United Nations accepted the change, and it became effective once the request was received and it was confirmed that the document was legitimate, which was submitted Wednesday.
Dujarric continued: “This is not an issue, we do not have to accept or not accept .. Countries are free to choose the way they want to be named .. It does not happen every day, but it is not unusual for countries to change their names.”
“One of the things that comes to my mind is Côte d’Ivoire, which was referred to in English as Côte d’Ivoire and they asked to be registered as Côte d’Ivoire,” the spokesperson added.
In the letter addressed to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkish Foreign Minister, wrote: “I would like to inform you that in line with the Presidential Circular… of December 2, 2021, on the use of the word ‘Turkey’ in the foreign language and subsequent branding strategy The Government of the Republic of Turkey, from now on will begin to use Türkiye to replace words such as Turkey, Turkei and Turquie that were used in the past to refer to the Republic of Turkey.”
