Turkey led the list of the first 10 countries chosen as finalists in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 after voting ended in the first semifinal.

The 10 entries to qualify were Turkey, Sweden, Israel, Portugal, Malta, Finland, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Romania, Armenia and Iceland after voting by television viewers and juries across Europe.

Turkish entry "Dum Tek Tek" by pop singer Hadise, featuring oriental rhythms and belly dancing, is seen as one of the favourites in the annual extravaganza of music and camp being hosted by Russia this year.

Hadise and her team cheered and waved red-and-white Turkish flags after her qualification was announced, television pictures showed.

Fifteen out of 25 finalists are now known. Russia, France, Germany, Britain and Spain are automatically given the right to compete in Saturday´s final, while the remaining 10 finalists will be chosen on Thursday.

The countries eliminated in the first semifinal were Andorra, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Macedonia, Montenegro and Switzerland.

According to Francis Bacon linguistics is an honorable way of wasting time. He surely did not live to see Eurovision. Inevitably, we are getting exposed to this crap this way or another. Last year, I heard and detested the song of Kalomi from Greece and liked ours. This year we have switched to Kalomi style on account that she could  garner more points with that silly song. 

Hadise´s song is a caricature of the Eastern culture;  a pack of half-baked turkish delight. She shows too much flesh hopelessly promoting a song which will be forgotten before the summer ends.

I think Eurovision should change format and stop being a contest of nations.  Don´t you think Europe has too many of these all European (with a few exceptions) organizations overflowing with all this patriotic stuff? It would better serve its purpose of functioning as a common platform among European nations if it promoted new talents regardless of their nationalities. A jury made up of serious musicians (likes of Elton John, Mark Knopfler,David Gilmour) could determine the winner based on musical merit.

 well it´s not even patriotic...it´s soo patronising it´s laughable..... and when it comes to scoring well your allies in war are your allies for eurovision ha ha.......

At least Hadise will be 3th

Actually i dont care about the result

 yeah you do ha ha

 yeah i do

I think Turkey will take first place this year

In my view, there´s no point in taking the Eurovision song contest too seriously. This programme is all about entertainment, and the camper the better! It´s the longest international song contest of its kind on TV and it draws audiences from all around the world in excess of 500 million, so why change it? People love it for whatever it is and I don´t think the voting has been taken that seriously either. It´s all about fun and friendship, not any musical talents. I´m sure if Britain finally won, we wouldn´t be so bitter about it and keep criticising it. Perhaps we should be more bitter about the fact that we don´t have enough ´friends´ to vote for us??

By the way, the Turkish song is just perfect for this type of song competition. Let´s vote for it!!!

 GO TURKEY GO!!!!

I´ve been listening to Düm Tek Tek for weeks and weeks, never mind if it wins or not (I hope it will I shall vote!), it still will make Türkiye proud I´m sure

I shall be having my own Eurovision party in my house, by that I mean I will sit watching it with a plate of cheese and a constant supply of coffee, whooping and cheering

Go Hadise! You can do it!

Anybody else think our UK entry is really bland?