Delivering remarks following the Presidential Cabinet Meeting, President Erdoğan said: “We will continue to implement in all the areas, from natural gas to the salaries of active workers and the retired, our ideal to share with every segment of our nation the resource that will emerge as Türkiye grows bigger, stronger and richer.”
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan delivered remarks to reporters following the Presidential Cabinet Meeting at the Presidential Complex.
“THERE IS NOT ANY PROBLEM THAT WE CANNOT OVERCOME”
President Erdoğan said: “We will continue to implement in all the areas, from natural gas to the salaries of active workers and the retired, our ideal to share with every segment of our nation the resource that will emerge as Türkiye grows bigger, stronger and richer. As long as we hold on tight to our unity and solidarity, with Allah’s permission, there is not any problem that we cannot overcome, or any threat that we cannot eliminate. We are laying bare the most concrete examples of this in our cities located in the earthquake zone. There is no other country in the world that could manage in such an efficient and fast manner a disaster which affected 14 million people in 11 cities, claimed over 50 thousand lives and caused 850 thousand independent sections to be collapsed. We have cleaned to a great extent the earthquake debris in our city centers. We serve our 600 thousand citizens in the temporary accommodation areas while we stand with our 1.3 million citizens with rental aids and other supports.”
Touching upon Türkiye’s fight against terror, President Erdoğan noted that this fight has recently been moved outside Türkiye’s borders to a great extent within the framework of Türkiye’s strategy of eliminating terror at its source, and added: “Inspired by our thousands-year-old statecraft, we maintain our fight outside our borders by complying with international law and without violating humanitarian and ethical norms. The pages of our anti-terror fight history do not read any deliberate harm to a single innocent person, or any bloodshed of a single child, or any damage to the honor of a single oppressed person. We carried out the latest operations in the Northern Iraq and the north of Syria last week with this very same sensitivity.”
“WE WILL CONTINUE TO CARRY OUT OPERATIONS IN A MUCH MORE DETERMINED MANNER”
“The first stage of our operation, in which we targeted solely members of the terrorist organization, the facilities used by terrorists, and the sources of income and capabilities of terror, was completed successfully,” President Erdoğan continued, and added: “Since October 1, as a result of our Air Forces’ operations and attacks by fire, a total of 194 terror targets have been destroyed. 162 terrorists have been neutralized during our operations. As has been the case in every operation of ours, we once again experienced the biggest problem in the latest operation with our ally, which has been supporting terrorist organization under the pretext of DAESH. As is known, we have been calling on for years other powers that are in close relationship with terrorist organizations in the region. We want these countries to keep their military and intelligence units in the region away from terrorist in order for them not to get harmed. Before the last operation, we made the same warnings at the levels of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of National Defense and the National Intelligence Organization.”
Underscoring that Türkiye carried out this operation with utmost sensitivity, President Erdoğan noted, however, that they could not prevent an unpleasant and what their counterparts called as a ‘worrisome’ incident from taking place, and went on to say: “Undoubtedly this incident has been recorded in our national memory and will be duly responded to when the time will come. We will continue to carry out operations against the terrorist organization and to the places under their control in a much more determined, much more intensified and much more efficient manner. We will allow neither a single terrorist to exist nor a terror corridor to be formed along our borders. In fact, our allies have promised us on that, but have failed to deliver on their promise. They not only deceive themselves but others as well by changing the name of the terrorist organization. Calling PKK as SDF is as same as calling America as the United States, and the Great Britain as the United Kingdom. Therefore, it is both a legal and ethical obligation of those who recognize the PKK as a terrorist organization to include in this scope the organization’s extensions operating under different names. Solely the incidents that took place 9 years ago upon the call of PKK’s political extension HDP’s former chairman, who is in prison right now, and administration require all by themselves such a step. Those, who defend the people responsible for these bloody incidents where our tens of civilian citizens, including Yasin Börü, as well as our security officers were violently massacred, are as guilty as them. It is Türkiye’s legitimate right to continue its cross-border operations until completely eliminating PKK with all its names and extensions, and to carry out intelligence activities at a global level. We will continue to fulfill every day, every time what our statement, ‘We can come one night all of a sudden,’ requires. This concept is not limited to PKK; it covers all the terrorist organizations, from FETO to DAESH, which target our country.”
Noting that they extend and strengthen the security corridor along Türkiye’s border with Northern Iraq each passing month, President Erdoğan said: “Once we finish these works we have been carrying out in cooperation with the Iraqi Central Government and Northern Iraq Regional Government, we will pass on to a new stage in our anti-terror fight. By crushing the terrorist organization with our operations there, we as Türkiye will have contributed to Iraq’s territorial integrity and the peace of the Northern Iraq Regional Government as well. We consider the successful ending of this process to be an auspicious step in terms of the future of the political and economic relations we have built with Iraq.”
“WE EXPECT THE ARMENIAN ADMINISTRATION TO PURSUE A PEACE-ORIENTED POLICY”
President Erdoğan continued as follows: “We once again congratulate our Azerbaijani brothers and sisters on their victory they won with their determined and gallant fight in Karabakh, another area of crisis in our region. In light of these experiences, we expect the Armenian administration to pursue a peace-, security- and prosperity-oriented policy in view of wisdom and justice in the upcoming period. Let me reiterate that if they act in this way and keep their promises, opening of the Zangezur Corridor in particular, we stand ready to enhance step by step our relations with the Armenian administration. Also, I call on the Iranian administration to act together in this historic project that will pave the way for political and economic steps which will enable peace and tranquility to prevail in the region.
“Al-Aqsa Mosque, our first qibla, and Al-Quds Al-Sharif have a special place in our hearts as the Muslims. People of any origin and any faith in the al-Quds-centered region, which had been a cradle of the oldest settlements and civilizations of the humanity, had lived in peace for centuries under our ancestors’ administration. Our ancestors had approached in such a meticulous manner to the religious richness of the region as inscribing, ‘Lâ ilâhe illallah, İbrahim halîlullah,’ on Gate al-Khalil. Unfortunately, after we had had to leave this place following the First World War, the region turned into a place where blood, tears, tension, conflicts and occupation have always existed. Both the injustices and oppressions imposed on the Palestinian people, and the attacks on the sanctity of al-Quds, of al-Aqsa Mosque in particular, have caused the region to be filled with apprehension. Undoubtedly, that the international community has failed to deliver on the promises it has given to the Palestinian people has a significant role in such deepening of the problems. Almost none of the decisions taken regarding Palestine by the United Nations or other international organizations has been implemented.
“JUST LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE, WAR HAS A CODE OF CONDUCT AND MORALITY, AND ALL PARTIES ARE OBLIGED TO ABIDE BY IT”
“As Türkiye, our position on this issue has been clear from the very beginning; we have recognized the State of Israel since 1949 and have maintained diplomatic relations with it, albeit sometimes interrupted. However, we believe that there will be no peace in the region without the establishment of an independent, sovereign and geographically-integrated State of Palestine based on the 1967 borders, with al-Quds as its capital. It is clear that the problem in the region will not be solved by constantly harassing the Palestinian people, disregarding their security of life and property, confiscating their homes and lands, destroying their infrastructure and preventing their development. Such an approach will only lead to more conflicts caused by deepening unrest, continuous bloodshed on both sides, and ultimately, the search for peace to always end in frustration. Israel's approach, which disregards the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people, also threatens the security of its own people, as evidenced by the latest incident.
“We have always said that we are not willing to let a single innocent person be harmed, neither in Israel nor in Palestine, and we maintain our position today, nothing has changed. Today, this is how we defend human beings without any discrimination, regardless of their beliefs and origins. Just as we oppose the oppression, persecution, extrajudicial killings, threats to life and property by Israeli security forces and illegal settlers against Palestinians, we also oppose random acts against Israeli civilians. In particular, the destruction of Gaza by disproportionate air and ground attacks, the bombing of mosques and the killings of innocent children, women, elderly and civilians are utterly unacceptable. If similar scenes have emerged in acts against Israeli cities, we definitely disapprove of them as well. Just like everything else, war has a code of conduct and morality, and all parties are obliged to abide by it. As we have always underlined, a just peace has no losers. Entering into a spiral of violence will bring nothing but additional pain.
“WE CALL ON THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT TO STOP ITS BOMBARDMENT OF THE PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES, ESPECIALLY GAZA, AND ON THE PALESTINIANS TO STOP THEIR HARASSMENT OF ISRAELI CIVILIAN SETTLEMENTS”
“We call on the Israeli government to stop its bombardment of the Palestinian territories, especially Gaza, and on the Palestinians to stop their harassment of Israeli civilian settlements. This step of restraint will also pave the way for peace. The day is not the day for impulsive acts, but the day to act with state wisdom, cool-headedness and human conscience. I would like to emphasize that we as Türkiye are ready for any kind of mediation, including prisoner exchange, if requested by the parties.
“We are continuing our diplomatic contacts, which we have been carrying out for some time and which we have intensified in the last three days. Today, I had a very productive telephone conversation with President Abbas of Palestine and President Herzog of Israel. I expressed to both leaders our deep sadness over the civilian deaths and our readiness to do our utmost to end the clashes and restore calm as soon as possible.
“I also spoke today with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani of Qatar, Prime Minister Mikati of Lebanon, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia and discussed how we can stop the bloodshed. We are also making the necessary preparations for the supply of humanitarian aid materials that the people of Gaza will need.
“While the world focused its attention on the events in Israel, painful news came from Afghanistan, the ancient geography of South Asia. A series of earthquakes, the largest of which measured 6.3 magnitude, hit the Herat province of Afghanistan on Saturday, causing massive destruction. We wish Allah's mercy on our Afghan brothers and sisters who lost their lives in the earthquakes, where the death toll reached 2,500 and the number of injured reached 10,000 according to the first reports, and we wish a speedy recovery to the injured.
“As soon as we received the news of the earthquake, we as Türkiye immediately prepared our search and rescue, healthcare and assistance personnel and materials. We also mobilized our NGOs operating in the region. As of today, our teams have reached Afghanistan and started their work in cooperation with the units responsible for disaster management in the country. As a country that has recently suffered a much larger earthquake disaster, we will continue to stand by our brothers and sisters in Afghanistan and work to meet their every need.”