The government of Luis Lacalle Pou, on behalf of the Uruguayan State, received at the beginning of November a communication from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), regarding the change of name of the Republic of Turkeywho asked to standardize his name throughout the world, above the different translations of the languages.
Officially, the bicontinental country had officially changed its name to the Republic of Türkiye, and asked the UN to recognize it as such in all international instances. It was a decision of the government of the far-right president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the search to abandon the “Turkey” version, which was used in English. One of the reasons, apart from nationalism, is that in the English language, the word for “turkey” is exactly the same.
At the state level, all the databases were updated so that it is now recognized Turkiye as official, and was communicated to the Uruguayan Association of Intellectual Property Agents (AUDAPI) and to all officials of the National Directorate of Intellectual Property.
A nationalist change
“The word Türkiye best represents and expresses the culture, civilization and values of the Turkish nation,” Erdoğan had assured at the time. International organizations such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and NATO have already adopted Türkiye, following a formal request from the Turkish authorities.
His critics and detractors say it is a populist strategy by the president to divert attention from the country’s ongoing economic problems, and to encourage nationalist and ultranationalist voters to vote for him and other politicians from his party, before the crucial elections of 2023. Other countries such as Thailand, Iran, Sri Lanka and North Macedonia have made similar changes in the recent past.
