The Turkish participating broadcaster, Türkiye Radyo ve Televizyon Kurumu (TRT), selected its entry through a national final.

Türkiye Radyo ve Televizyon Kurumu (TRT) held the national final on 14 February 1981 at its studios in Ankara, hosted by Bülend Özveren.

[1] [2] On the evening of the contest Ayşegül Aldinç and Modern Folk Üçlüsü performed second in the running order following Austria and preceding Germany.

At the close of the voting the song received 9 points, thus Dönme Dolap shared 18th place with Portugal.

[4] Members of the Turkish jury included Süheyla Aldoğan, Hidayet Yarken, Hatice Akbaş, Lüftiye Duman, Nebiye Yazıcı, Nesrin Demirel, Sami Ersoy, Mehmet Kuteş, Mustafa Ekinci, Cengiz Doğan, and Ali Arslan.