On Thursday, The United Nations announced that Turkey had notified the UN that, at the request of its president, it wants to be known as “Turkiye” in all languages from now on.

“The change is immediate,” Stephen Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general, told AFP. He noted that an official letter from Ankara asking for changes was received Wednesday at United Nations headquarters in New York.
The day before, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavasoglu tweeted a photo of himself signing a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

“Through my letter to the UN Secretary-General today, we register our country’s foreign name as ‘Turkiye’ at the UN,” he wrote. He added that the change would end “increasing the value of our country’s brand”, an initiative launched by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has led the country for nearly 20 years.

Over the past few years, the country has been trying to rebrand its products from “Made in Turkey” to “Made in Turkiye”.

In addition to matching the Turkish spelling of the country with the UN naming, the update will also help distinguish the country from the birds of the same name in English.