It's easy to get entangled in nonsense on these topics because, as is well known, "race" and "ethnicity" are poorly defined and often illogically and inconsistently defined and definitions change over time. The categories exist all the same. I may be sensitive to this issue because over the past decade or two a favorite tacitc of American racists has been to claim that discussion of racism or race is itself.(see the discussion of "color blind" in the wiki steve colbert piece)
Colbert describes himself as racially color-blind and unable to visually identify a person's race,[44] explaining, "Now, I don't see race ... People tell me I'm white, and I believe them, because I own a lot of Jimmy Buffett albums."[45] His race-blindness is a recurring joke, and this statement is often repeated on the show with different punch lines.[46] For this same reason he believed that he was black (even though he's obviously not) when he had an emotional breakdown after watching Obama's inauguration video. He later qualified these statements in his book, stating, "When I say I don't see race, I mean I don't see Black people. But I can spot a Mexican at a hundred paces."[23]

Turkey is usually considered middle eastern. I will cite Wikipedia again, no less.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East