President Erdogan is making a statement on live broadcast. Speaking about the CHP’s Report of Imprisoned Journalists, President Erdoğan said: “These are terrorists, which they defend in the fabricated report they prepared to slander Turkey. CHP is a national security issue.”
The highlights of Erdoğan’s statements are as follows:
Our expectation from the United States is that it does not miscalculate Greece and does not allow the manipulation of international public opinion. We made the necessary warnings to the USA and Greece through our Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We sent our last letter to the UN on 17 September. The US lifting the arms embargo on Southern Cyprus has no explanation either in terms of content or timing. Everyone should know that this last step will not go unanswered regarding the US lifting the arms embargo on the Greek Cypriot administration, and that every precaution will be taken for the safety of the Turkish Cypriots.
We are currently trying to find out how to transfer this grain to underdeveloped, poor and strange countries. Unfortunately, 80 percent of the present went to richer countries. This seriously disturbed Mr. Putin. It came up in our last meeting both in Uzbekistan and in our previous meeting in Tehran. I guess that from now on, we will be successful in exporting these to underdeveloped countries, and we will come to a conclusion. Two things are important here. Grain and fertilizer. Hopefully the Russian channel will come into play. I hope so.
The cost of going to a nuclear war is catastrophic. You shouldn’t even think about talking about it. I hope that solving this issue through diplomacy without ever bringing them up would be the most appropriate step in my opinion. Even the referendum for accession to Russia in some occupied parts of Ukraine, and even the mobilization decision of Russia is alarming. It complicates diplomatic initiative efforts, complicates instability. This referendum event, if the annexation decision comes out here, which I am worried about, may happen. Mr. Putin I know, if he puts his mind to something, he does it that way. I care about our meeting tomorrow, hopefully if an appointment is made. Let’s hope we’ve put diplomacy into action.
Mr. Biden told us that as Democrats, he is in favor of giving his own opinion, F-16s and all other parts, the accent. In particular, my Minister of Defense was getting answers in this direction in his meetings with his interlocutor. It was said, ‘We can’t get support from the Republicans, they look at this the wrong way’. On this trip, I had separate meetings with the Republicans. They gave me positive answers. They said, ‘We will try our best’. They said, ‘With these talks, we will say that it is not right to be hostile towards Turkey, that Turkey is our important partner in NATO, we need to solve this problem’. We are waiting for the result of this.
As long as the terrorist organization exists in Syria and threatens our national security, our struggle there will of course continue. We take every precaution in the field. Whatever threatens our national security, wherever it is, is what we call ‘one night suddenly’ against them. Whatever we have to do, we do it. We are determined to transform this struggle and our efforts into a comprehensive counter-terrorism operation when we deem necessary and appropriate. As a matter of fact, we have included them in the MGK press text today. We also ensure the peace of the region. The fight against terrorism is not one-sided. For this reason, the other party should also have a positive approach to it so that we can get results.
The US and Russia need to implement the agreements we reached in October 2019. Here, the PKK and YPG terrorist organizations are deployed in areas close to our border, contrary to the agreements. They receive education around Kamışlı. While these facts are clear, how will we be together in NATO while the US takes these steps together with the coalition forces? No one can expect us to remain silent. Regarding Damascus, our intelligence agency is conducting negotiations about that place. We determine our roadmap based on the results of our intelligence organization.
In the north of Syria, we are building 100 thousand briquette houses in the first stage and 250 thousand in the second stage. Refugees in Turkey started to move here gradually. These houses have infrastructure. We built beautiful briquette houses with everything. They have a bathroom, toilet and everything. At the heating point, we have done projects such as heating with solar energy. We need to prepare for the voluntary and safe return of Syrians to their countries, as well as dignified. As CHP and others have said, we cannot say ‘we will deport them to Syria as soon as they arrive’. This is not the case with our civilization. We cannot look the way the Greek did. We see how they paved the way for him to drown by skewering the boots. We cannot approach it with the approach of the esteemed chairman of the CHP.
At the moment, we are the only financiers of briquette houses and we are doing this with the efforts of non-governmental organizations. He said that we are giving support to the OSCE for a while. At one point, Ms. Merkel talked about a small thing. Nothing came. Thanks to our NGOs, they have made these investments here with effort, enthusiasm and faith. I mentioned in my speech at the UN, we will continue to reiterate our call for universal justice. Turkey becomes the voice of conscience in the international arena.
These recognitions are not instantaneous. Many large and small countries have been recognized in the world, but how long have they been recognized? It took some long time. What are we saying? The equal international status of the acquis of the Turkish Cypriot people, which was confirmed by the 1959-60 agreements, should be registered. This means that the annexed state on the island sits at the negotiating table with equal status, we will achieve this. If the UN Security Council acts fairly, we will speed up this period. I believe that we will get results from the UN General Assembly. They took no steps to confirm the sovereign equality and international equal status of the Turkish Cypriot people. If the UN Security Council cannot do this, then the UN members can confirm the vested rights of the Turkish Cypriots by recognizing the TRNC. I believe our efforts will yield results.
Since Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu wants a guarantee, he needs a house. If he has such a need, he can apply to TOKİ. We built 1 million 175 thousand houses. This is not the first time we have entered this field. We distributed housing in Esenler 1.5 months ago. I went to a house there. We drank tea. We saw their happiness. Mr. Kemal, look, be honest. Politics is honesty. It’s not like throwing away whatever comes to mind. We are rewriting history with the step we take now. The number of applications of our youth is 1 million 715 thousand. Young people understand this business better than you. There are 5 million applications. I hope we hit the first dig on October 25th. Our problem is that wherever we are going to start all over Turkey, as TOKİ, we want to lay the foundations and start this business at the same time. We will take steps to explain our draw dates as soon as possible.
Housing, land, and a step for young people. We want to give our citizens such an opportunity by increasing this number, by increasing the current number for those who say, “I will buy my land, if the infrastructure is ready, I will build my house myself, maybe 1 million, maybe more,” by drawing lots. We talked to my Minister about such a man to take a new step and lay the groundwork for us, we said let’s do this. We will build the infrastructure, and he will build his house. We will take these steps, provided that they are suitable for horizontal architecture. At the moment, our Ministry of Environment and Urbanization will make the planning. How much land will we present in which province? We will make this step before the drawing of lots. I gave the order last night, I said, ‘Start the work as soon as possible, let’s make the announcement as soon as possible, let our citizens who will buy land head here, let’s draw lots’. 1 million plots might be too much.
We said that we can start the second phase after the election. Let’s quickly start with 500 thousand social housing. On the one hand, let our citizens come to the lands, enter and build their houses. The mouth speaks. We built 1 million 175 thousand housing estates, no one else. We do not have financial problems, we do these. We gave 2 years in the house. In 2 years, we will reach these figures in housing. I hope we will not embarrass our citizens.
We stood by all segments of our nation, from our students to our farmers, from our paid employees to our employers. We continue our inclusive support to our low-income citizens without interruption. We increased the daily nutritional support given to our students staying in higher education dormitories from 25 liras to 60 liras. Currently, the capacity of our dormitories is 850 thousand. We increased the nutritional aid to 1800 liras per month. In July, we announced that the repayments of student loan debts should be made only on the principal. We have lifted the burden of more than 26 billion liras from our youth.
We have provided our farmers with the opportunity to pay their electricity bills after the harvest. He will sell his product, pay the bill after earning income. We have heralded that we provide the opportunity to repay the debts of the previous periods with a maturity of up to 5 years without interest. We have increased the purchase price. While the resource allocated from the budget for social expenditures was 1.6 billion TL in 2002, this figure reached 146 billion TL in 2022.
Let me be clear, I hope I name this century, it will be the century of Turkey. You see what the conditions in the world bring and take away, what is the situation in Europe and the USA. Turkey has not experienced these problems, it does not. In addition to the strong industry, the tourism sector was also influential. Global growth forecasts for 2022 are always updated downwards around the world. However, our Turkish economy model proves the continuation of growth. In this context, we foresee a growth of 5 percent in 2022. It will be better.
Details are coming…