Turkey is in the process of changing its name to Türkiye, which may make its previous name available to new gTLD applicants in the sector that kills birds.
According to reports, the Turkish government has made an official request to the United Nations for the name to be altered so that it is more consistent with the Turkish name and pronunciation of the country (which is apparently “Turkey-YAY”) and so that it is no longer associated with poultry and the negative connotations associated with that association.
Because of this, it is possible that the previous spelling will, at some point in the future, no longer be considered a reserved string in accordance with the regulations of the new gTLD program.
The version of the Applicant Guidebook that was published in 2012 prohibits the submission of applications for strings that match country names on the ISO 3166 list, including translations and variants of those names. It also prohibits the submission of applications for names by which a country is “commonly known,” as demonstrated by the fact that it is used by an intergovernmental or treaty organization.
If everyone gets on the same page and begins referring to Turkey as Türkiye instead of Turkey, then those requirements might no longer be relevant, in which case new gTLD specialists might wish to get in touch with Bernard Matthews.
If the ISO decides to maintain the name on its list of names that are “exceptionally reserved,” the previous name might continue to be prohibited. As of right now, the previous name is still included in the primary list maintained by the 3166 standard.
The new spelling is very unlikely to have any impact on the country’s country code top-level domain (ccTLD), which is.tr.