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In the predominantly Muslim Turkey, the country's armed forces is set to introduce a 'Don't ask, Don't Tell" regulation of its own.

The new regulation essentially states to gay soldiers: "If you come out – you’ll be expelled, if you stay in the closet – we’ll do nothing."

The Turkish Military's current regulations of ‘unnatural intercourse’ and ‘psychosexual disorders’ as reasons to dismiss a soldier from the army, are to be replaced with a new criteria: ‘sexual identity and behavioral patterns should be dominant and apparent in every part of life’.

According to Ali Erol from Turkey’s main LGBT organization, Kaos GL, any soldier who is out in the army will thus be expelled after a military ‘medical report’ is submitted and approved by the Turkish Ministry of National Defence that establishes the criteria above.

Turkey is an associate member of the European Union.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) had previously ruled against Turkey’s discriminatory practices. The ECHR ruling clearly states the following:
"A person’s sexual orientation cannot be considered nor treated as a crime, and any practice that suggests this would be labeled as sexual orientation discrimination."

On 26 April 2012, 22 Members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe have expressed concern about the degrading treatment applied to gays and trans women by excluding them from service in the Turkish Armed Forces, and called for this practice to be halted.

Turkey ignored and continues to ignore above mentioned rulings.