Frequently Asked Questions
The Turkish Diplomatic Archives, where documents belonging to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have been preserved since 1919, consist of diplomatic correspondence, notes, reports, agreements, and other documents produced by our central offices and foreign missions, or received from other government agencies and the institutions and missions of other countries.
While these documents primarily cover bilateral or multilateral political, military, educational, cultural, economic, and commercial issues related to other countries and regional/international organizations, our archives also contain documents pertaining to administrative, financial, and technical matters.
It is not possible to conduct on-site research in the Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Documents that have been processed and declassified are transferred digitally to the Directorate of the State Archives. Researchers can access these documents by logging into the Document Search System (BETSİS) of the Directorate of the State Archives at https://katalog.devletarsivleri.gov.tr/ and selecting the “Ministry of Foreign Affairs Turkish Diplomatic Archive” tab.
No, there is no separate procedure for foreign researchers. All researchers, whether local or foreign, can access our archive through the system mentioned above (BETSİS).
In accordance with archival regulations, access to documents that have not yet been classified or are currently undergoing the classification process is not permitted. These documents will only become accessible once the classification process has been completed and they have been transferred to the Directorate of the State Archives.
Since documents from the Turkish Diplomatic Archives are made available to researchers through the BETSİS system of the Directorate of the State Archives, it would be appropriate for consistency to cite these documents using the institution’s standard format, ensuring that the citations align with the bibliographic information in the digital system.