Appreciative they may be, but they do not understand a word. Ehmedo is sung in Kurdish, a language once banned by Turkey as that of a subversive ethnic minority.

Aynur is currently a top-selling artist here, one of the most palpable signs of change in a country that has been inching towards EU membership, easing legal restrictions on freedoms and pummelling its economy into shape. A decade ago it would have been unthinkable for Aynur to release a best-seller in the language of her ethnic kin: in 1994, villages in Aynur’s home province, Tunceli, were being burnt and emptied by security forces determined to deny Kurdish separatist guerrillas support from an area deemed to be their stronghold.

“Ten years ago, the country was a bloodbath,” said Mehmet Altan, an economics professor and political commentator who has just published a book of his essays from then “to remind people just how different things are now”.

In 1994, a Kurdish independence war led by Abdullah Ocalan, was in full swing in southeast Turkey, resulting in the deaths of more than 30,000. Ten provinces were under emergency rule. Travel there after dark was unthinkable for fear of attack, arrest or kidnap. Army checkpoints dotted the roads. Hundreds of people — often leftwingers or Kurdish sympathisers — disappeared each year, their names filed under so-called mystery murders, which rights groups alleged were committed by shady groups close to the state.

Simmering allegations of political links with organised criminals and right-wing extremist assassins were laid bare in 1996 when a mafia boss, gangster’s moll and police chief died together in a car crash. A conservative MP survived.

It was in 1994 that parliament sent eight Kurdish MPs to jail. Four of them, including Leyla Zana, the Nobel Peace Prize nominee remained imprisoned, for terrorist links, until this year.

Torture in detention was commonplace; women and teenagers were not spared. Full press freedom was still a bit of a fantasy. Hundreds of journalists and writers faced jail for seemingly innocuous expressions of opinion. Some were killed in detention, including the left-wing reporter Metin Goktepe, who died in 1995.

The role of the military, which last staged a coup in 1980, was still pivotal. Editors would receive military faxes suggesting they avoid “unpatriotic” subjects. The National Security Council (NSC), a politico-military body dominated by top generals, effectively ruled the country.

It was hardly surprising the army was so revered compared with the squabbling politicians blustering uselessly in shaky, personality-dominated coalitions. Any hope that Tansu Ciller, Turkey’s first woman Prime Minister, would herald reform soon disappeared with her hardline security stance, while her economics professor credentials failed to prevent a financial crisis in 1994, in which the currency was devalued. Corruption was widespread but unchecked.

When Mrs Ciller’s coalition finally collapsed, it took nine months of wrangling to produce a partnership headed by an ethereal Islamist who soon resigned after a military-led pressure campaign.

Fast forward to 2004. Turkey is by no means the perfect example of harmonious democracy, freedom of expression and financial transparency. But, rather like an Ottoman military march of two steps forward, one step back, the country, egged on by the carrot of EU membership, can suddenly look back and find that it has made huge leaps.

Socially, increasingly exposed to the West, this mainly Muslim country has become a mish-mash of confused practises, where the devout set up internet dating sites while avid viewers tune in for reality shows involving cross-dressing men.

Istanbul has a gay pride, the reformist head of religious affairs ponders designer gear for preachers and a swath of new laws have granted many new rights to women. Politically, newspaper headlines show that, unthinkably, the military now comes in for criticism, even ridicule, while the recently downgraded NSC barely figures. A single-party government, led by the devout but urbane Recep Tayyip Erdogan, offers stability.

Although extrajudicial killings were highlighted once more by the police killing of an unarmed man and his young son in southeast Turkey last month, the wave of mystery murders has been consigned to history.

The Kurdish situation is transformed, if not resolved. Now the issues are about cultural rights, and how the thousands made homeless by fighting in Tunceli province will be compensated. Victims have the courage to apply to the European Court of Human Rights.

Kurdish broadcasting and teaching has begun, albeit haphazardly. The insurgency is all but over, with Ocalan in prison serving life — his death sentence commuted thanks to pro-EU reforms — and the freed Kurdish MPs meeting ministers. Emergency rule has gone in the southeast, the checkpoints have come down.

Travel and television companies are moving in. Importantly, an awareness of rights is transforming the landscape, says Nejat Tastan, general secretary of the Human Rights Association: “There is a huge shift in mentality as people realise they can do something about their situation,” he said.

“Much remains to be done, but thanks to EU monitoring Turkish politicians are finally being forced to make changes. The longer this goes on, the faster the change.”