1 Lira FAO

Issued as part of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization coin program, which Turkey participated in across multiple denominations during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The FAO program, launched globally in 1968, encouraged member nations to mint circulating coins promoting food production and agricultural development — Turkey's entries coincided with a period of severe domestic political instability that culminated in the military coup of September 1980. Coins struck that year entered circulation, if at all, during a period of martial law and economic controls that drastically disrupted normal commerce.