Turkey

Turkey was – with a few interruptions – a part of Eurovision between 1975 and 2012. Globally speaking one could say that their start was rather bad (with a last place at their debut and a place in the top ten only after nine years) and that the end was pretty good (Turkey almost continuously qualified for the final, there were a lot of top ten rankings and there was even a beautiful second place for maNga in 2010).

In between all of this there is one sole Turkish victory: in 2003 Serteb Erener sang her Everyway that I can to a brilliant first place.

Turkey has always been a capricious contestant. Sometimes politics played a part, like it did in the seventies when because of the conflict with Greece the Turkish did not want to be seen on the same stage with Greeks, or in 1979, when the festival was held in Israel and Turkey withdraw under pressure from neighbouring countries. After 2012 Turkey called it quits. Dissatisfaction with the fact that the running order would be chosen by producers seems to be the main reason, but this is not totally clear. Moreover Turkey is still a part of the European Broadcasting Union and therefore could choose to take part again without any problems.

(T: Inès Verstraete)