Proclamation of the Republic of Turkey

This historic milestone was realized through the acceptance of a constitutional amendment proposal crafted by Mustafa Kemal Pasha.

[5] While discussions of the republican ideology began with the Tanzimat era, Ottoman intellectuals deemed the establishment of constitutional monarchy sufficient, and there was no further push for or demand of a more advanced form of governance.

[3] Following the conclusion of World War I, which resulted in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the national struggle initiated under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha explicitly declared, from its early years, that popular will would henceforth prevail in governance.

[6] In a statement he made to a correspondent of Austria's Neue Freie Presse newspaper on 22 September 1923, and first summarized in Turkish in the İkdam newspaper, Mustafa Kemal explicitly introduced the term "republic" in response to the correspondent's question, causing significant reverberations both domestically and internationally.

[6] In October 1923, İsmet Pasha and a group of deputies submitted a bill to the Grand National Assembly proposing Ankara be recognized as the seat of government.

With the enactment of this single-article law on 13 October 1923, officially designating Ankara as the capital, the contentious debates over the government center being in Istanbul were resolved, and a crucial step toward the proclamation of the republic was taken.

In this governmental system, where each minister was elected by the parliament, it led to a form of government where incompatible individuals came together.

[7] Members of the newly formed Executive Committee, established after the election of the new parliament, expressed difficulties working under these conditions.

[7] In response to this situation, Mustafa Kemal, the speaker of the parliament, convened the government on the evening of 25 October 1923 at Çankaya.

While the parliament was engaged in other matters, the proposed bill was formally examined and documented by the Constitutional Committee.