Turkey Reports Record High Smoking Rates
Turkish Health Minister Kemal Memisoglu stated that the country ranks second in the world in terms of smoking rates among men.
According to him, 46% of Turkish men smoke, and Turkey is second only to Indonesia in this regard. However, the minister did not specify the exact data on which this comparison was based.
Memisoglu also reported that in 2025, approximately 8 billion packs of cigarettes were sold in the country, which averages out to 117 packs per capita.
The minister identified smoking as one of Turkey’s major public health problems. He noted that more than half of all deaths in the country are linked to diseases caused primarily by smoking, insufficient physical activity, and obesity.
Despite long-standing restrictions on smoking, advertising, and the sale of tobacco products, legal cigarette sales in Turkey reached their highest level on record in 2025.
Source: Turkish Minute.
As a reminder, earlier, the interior ministers of Turkey and Bulgaria, Mustafa Çiftçi and Ivan Demerdzhiev, agreed during talks in Sofia to expand cooperation in managing their shared border, combating illegal migration, human trafficking, and drug trafficking. The importance of this land border segment has increased following Bulgaria’s full accession to the Schengen Area.
Turkey has completed 82% of the construction work as part of the large-scale Iyidere logistics port project in the province of Rize in the northeast of the country. Infrastructure work is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2026, after which construction of the superstructure will begin.
