Amasya - City of 12th June

At the end of World War I, the Turks found themselves on the wrong - the loosing - side, and thus occupied by a crowd of nations. The officer, Mustafa Kemal (the later Ataturk) escaped the

capital Istanbul and secretly met with his friends in Amasya on the 12th of June 1919. Here the basic principles for the struggle for Turkish independence were settled. The town's long history, which includes Hittites, Persians and Alexander the Great, is overshadowed by this meeting, and the Ataturk monument is even more glorious than the one of other cities. And here they celebrate the 12th of June as a local national day every year.