TRT, the national Turkish broadcaster, has announced in a communique on their official website that Turkey will not compete at the forthcoming Eurovision Song Contest in Sweden next May. The broadcaster’s reasons for withdrawing from next year’s event are the changes in the voting system of the contest: introduction of 50/50 jury and televoting deliberation, and the Big 5 rule, enabling  Spain, Italy, UK, France and Germany to automatically qualify every year for the final. The broadcaster expresses its discontent regarding these rules and feels they are not fair.

You can read the official communique on TRT”s official website here

Turkey debuted at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1975 and won the competition in 2003 with Sertab Erener.

Stay tuned to esctoday.com for more news on Turkey and the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest.

esctoday.com would like to thank Narmina Tamrazova and Serol Karalar for their assistance.