Turkey in the Eurovision Song Contest in Eastern Thrace and Western Asia), Turkey takes part in lots of Westerner organisations including their NATO membership in 1952 and associate membership in the European Economic Community in 1959. Test transmissions started on TRT 1 on 31 January 1968. A full national television schedule, which at that time linked the areas in and around Ankara, Istanbul, and Izmir, started in December 1971. TRT renewed its membership in the European Broadcasting Union (having been a founding member previously offering only radio) starting on 26 August 1972 with Turkey's first Eurovision Network event, a football match (Turkey vs. Italy), on 13
Eastern Macedonia and Thrace and weight of the five now abolished prefectures, Drama, Evros, Kavala, Rhodope and Xanthi. In this special case, the region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace also succeeds the intermediate structure of the two super-prefectures of Drama-Kavala-Xanthi and of Rhodope-Evros into which the five prefectures had been grouped since 1994. Capital of the region is Komotini, which by population is the fourth largest city, following Alexandroupoli, Kavala and Xanthi. The region is divided into the Macedonian regional units of Drama, Kavala and Thasos and the Thracian regional units of Xanthi, Rhodope and Evros, which coincide with the territory of the former