The Iraqi Turkmen, also referred to as Iraqi Turks, Turkish-Iraqis, the Turkish minority in Iraq, and the Iraqi-Turkish minority are Iraq's third largest ethnic group. They make up to 10%–13% of the Iraqi population and are native to northern Iraq. Iraqi Turkmen share ties with Turkish people, and do not identify with the Turkmen of Turkmenistan and Central Asia.
Suleiman the Magnificent defeated the Safavids on December 31, 1534, gaining Baghdad and, later, southern Iraq. Throughout the Ottoman reign, the Ottomans encouraged Turkish migration along northern Iraq.
A large influx of Turks continued to settle in Iraq once Murad IV recaptured Baghdad in 1638.
Bilingual sign (Arabic and Turkish) of a Turkmen village.
Bilingual sign (Arabic and Turkish) of a Turkmen village.
Turkish is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages, with around 90 to 100 million speakers. It is the national language of Turkey and Northern Cyprus. Significant smaller groups of Turkish speakers also exist in Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Greece, Cyprus, other parts of Europe, the South Caucasus, and some parts of Central Asia, Iraq, and Syria. Turkish is the 18th most spoken language in the world.
The 9th-century Irk Bitig or "Book of Divination"
The 15th century Book of Dede Korkut
An advertisement by the IKEA branch in Berlin written in the German and Turkish languages.
Road sign at the European end of the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul. (Photo taken during the 28th Istanbul Marathon in 2006)
