Turkey to honor WWI victory

ÇANAKKALE - Doğan News Agency

Turkey will mark the 97th anniversary of the Ottomans’ First World War victory over the Allied fleet in the Dardanelles Strait with ceremonies to be attended by high-ranking state officials on March 18 in the northwestern province of Çanakkale.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will not be able to attend the ceremony, as he has done for each of the past eight years, due to an official visit he is scheduled to pay to Germany on March 17.

Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç will represent the government at the ceremony, while Interior Minister İdris Naim Şahin, Defense Minister İsmet Yılmaz, and Forestry and Waterworks Minister Veysel Eroğlu are also going to attend the ceremonies. Better known in the West as the “Gallipoli Campaign,” the ensuing land battle lasted from April 1915 to January 1916, and ended with the Allies’ complete withdrawal from the area.