Settlement behaviour of a concrete faced rock-fill dam (CFRD), Kurtun dam, located in the East Black Sea Region, Turkey, is investigated. This is the first instrumented CRDF in the Country. Two dimensional plane strain finite element analyses were carried out to assess the total stresses and displacements in the dam both for construction and reservoir filling stages by using computer program PLAXIS. Predicted stresses and settlements are compared with those observed and overall the results are found to be in good agreement for the construction stage. Due to the relatively steep abutment slopes, cross-valley arching has a significant effect on stresses and displacements in the dam body. For the reservoir filling condition, it is seen that, predicted settlements are larger than the observed values, which indicates that during reservoir filling the rock-fill embankment responds more stiffly than it does during the construction stage. The hardening soil model is used to represent the nonlinear, inelastic and stress dependent behaviour of rock-fill material. The model parameters are selected from the appropriate values in the literature investigating comparable cases.