US changes to Turkey’s preferred Name at ally’s request

The State Department said Thursday it had adopted Turkey’s preferred spelling for the country’s name, Turkiye, acceding to a request from the NATO ally after several months of hesitation.

Officials have advised that new official documents refer to Turkiye instead of Turkey, although the pronunciation will not change. But neither the State Department website nor the Foreign Affairs Manual, which guides US diplomatic practices, had been revised to reflect the change as of midday Thursday.

“The Turkish embassy requested that the US government use the name “Republic of Turkiye” in communications,” the department said. “We will begin to refer to Turkiye and the Republic of Turkiye accordingly in most formal, diplomatic, and bilateral contexts, including in public communications.”

The move comes ahead of an expected visit to Washington later this month by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, during which Turkey’s position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its resistance to allowing Finland and Sweden to join NATO will be high on the agenda.

Several other federal agencies, including the Treasury Department, had already adopted the new spelling, which had led to inconsistencies in documents across the US government.