We will hopefully experience much more favorable developments in 2020: Erdoğan

In the message, Erdoğan wished peace and health to the whole humanity in 2020, and said: "Today’s Turkey looks to the future with much greater hope and confidence than did yesterday’s Turkey. Those, who used to threaten Turkey with chaos, terror, putsch, crisis and instability, are now confessing despair in the face of our steps and are seeking reconciliation. As I always say, our greatest strength is our unity and solidarity."

 "Leaving behind the year 2019, during which we witnessed events of historic importance, we are about to enter 2020, when we will hopefully experience much more favorable developments together. I pray to my Lord that the year 2020 may lead to auspicious developments for our country, nation, friends and the entire humanity."

"We work day and night to bring our country closer to the goal of great and powerful Turkey"

As had been the case with previous years, we pursued a very busy agenda in 2019, too, both at home and abroad, implementing very important and fruitful works and services.

At home, we paid a total of 88 visits to the 58 provinces of ours, visiting some of them more than once. Outside the country, we paid 19 visits to 14 countries on behalf of Turkey. Besides them, we attended a large number of events and had lots of meetings and talks in Ankara and Istanbul.

We implemented for the use of our people many investments and services, each of which is a milestone in our country’s development journey. We keep working day and night in order to bring our country closer to the goal of great and powerful Turkey.

With the elections on March 31, we elected the mayors, municipal council members, provincial assembly members and mukhtars that will administer our cities for the next 5 years. I once again wish for the election results to yield favorable outcomes. Therefore, Turkey entered an uninterrupted period of action until the next presidential and parliamentary elections in June of 2023.

The Istanbul Airport, which we recently built and is among the largest in the world, entered into service with full capacity in early April. The Istanbul Airport, the 50 millionth passenger of which we recently marked with a ceremony, will hopefully grow further year by year and continue to proudly represent our country in the world.

Throughout May, we worked to benefit from the spiritual atmosphere of Ramadan and came together with people of all walks of life. At the end of that month, we unveiled the Strategy Document for Judicial Reform, laying out the roadmap for Turkey to carry on with its determined steps in line with democracy and rule of law. In October, we started to take concrete steps as per the strategy document with the approval of the first judiciary package by the parliament.

The Istanbul-Izmir Highway, which we inaugurated with all its lines in August right before Eid al-Adha, is one of the most critical transport projects of our country.

My speech and our talks at the United Nations General Assembly in September showed, once again, Turkey’s humanitarian stance and constructive policies to the entire world.

"Operation peace spring demonstrated our determination as regards the war on terror"

Moreover, Operation Peace Spring, which we launched on October 9, effectively demonstrated our determination as regards Turkey’s security and the war on terror. As you know, we had conducted Operation Euphrates Shield in the Jarabulus-Al Bab area in August 2016 and Operation Olive Branch in the Afrin region in January 2018. As a result, we had cleared DAESH and PKK/YPG terrorists from an area of 4 thousand square kilometers and had enabled the return home of 370 thousand Syrian refugees. With Operation Peace Spring, we cleared terrorists from another area of nearly 4,300 square kilometers between Ras al-Ayn and Tell Abyad.

The Memorandum of Understanding on Security and Military Cooperation and the Memorandum of Understanding on Delimitation of the Maritime Jurisdiction Areas" between Turkey and Libya brought about gains of great strategic importance for our country. These two memoranda have expanded and enhanced much further the process we had initiated via an agreement with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). The projects aimed at entirely excluding Turkey from the Mediterranean have thus been wholly thwarted with our recent steps. The full implementation of these agreements will be facilitated by the support we will lend to the legitimate Tripoli Government in Libya.

The construction project for 100 thousand social housing units, which we announced to the public in the first half of December, aroused great interest and demand in all the 81 provinces of ours. We plan to maintain this campaign in the form of 100-thousand series so long as our people continue their demand for housing.

In the last days of 2019, we all shared the joy of a project, which I believe made proud every one of our 82 million citizens. We unveiled the first cars of the Turkey’s Automobile Project, making our nation’s 60-year-old dream come true. Making their debut in Gebze, the cars, with their designs and features, show that our country is moving forward in the right direction. Although those, who cannot tolerate an indigenous car just like anything else that is national and domestic, try to find faults with Turkey’s Automobile, our people’s embracing of it is a proof of this project’s success. We will be looking forward to Turkey’s Automobile, which is to go on sale in late 2022.

"We will develop and definitely implement the Canal Istanbul project"

Likewise, we will, step by step, develop and, definitely, implement the Canal Istanbul Project, which will immensely contribute to our country in economic and strategic respects.

Over the past 7 years, Turkey has sustained planned attempts of encirclement in every area from terror to economy. Thankfully, we have together managed to repel these attacks, which have many dimensions ranging from our territorial integrity to national unity, from our economy to security. We have not yielded to schemes to stir up the streets, bloody attacks by terrorist organizations, insidious coup attempts by traitors within, or to traps against our economy.

"Our greatest strength is our unity and solidarity"

We have waged a fight on all fronts against attacks targeting our country and nation. We have become victorious in every fight we have waged thanks to the help of Allah, the prayers of the oppressed and the unwavering support of our people.

Today’s Turkey looks to the future with much greater hope and confidence than did yesterday’s Turkey. Those, who used to threaten Turkey with chaos, terror, putsch, crisis and instability, are now confessing despair in the face of our steps and are seeking reconciliation. As I always say, our greatest strength is our unity and solidarity. That is why we say at every opportunity that we will be ONE, we will be BIG, we will be STRONG, we will be BROTHERS AND SISTERS, and we, all together, will be TURKEY.

The year 2020 will hopefully be a year when we will start to reap the fruits of the struggles we have been carrying out and of the efforts, we have been exerting for all these years.

I wish Allah’s mercy upon all our martyrs who walked to death without blinking an eye in this great struggle, and welfare to our veterans. I hope the year 2020 will bring peace, serenity, welfare and prosperity to our country, nation and the whole humanity. I extend my greetings to you all." (ILKHA)