President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan arrived in Mardin to attend a mass opening program before the Presidential Government System referendum to be held on April 16th. Greeting the crowd waiting at the entrance of the city, Erdoğan addressed the public in the July 15 Martyrs Park.

Placards "Welcome" and "Mardin is YES in every language" written in Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic and Syriac hanged to various points of the city and in the opening area. Erdoğan was accompanied by Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu and Energy and Natural Resources Minister Berat Albayrak.

“Mardin must not go on the path of suffering, the tears, but the city of beauty, I always say where the terrorism is neither investor nor tourist come,” said Erdoğan.

“Are we responding to those who want to sacrifice Mardin, the city of the Muslim saints, to their ideological obsessions, saying ‘yes’ on 16 April? Did my Kurdish, Assyrian and Arab brothers deserved those ditches diked in these streets?”

“We respect the one to say ‘no’ but you also respect the one to say ‘yes’”

Erdoğan said that a giant city hospital will be opened in Mardin, continued his speech as follows:

“Giant city hospital will be opened in Mardin,” said President Erdoğan and added, “We did Marmaray under the sea. We say that it will not end. We built the Eurasia Tunnel under the Bosporus. But we said that it does not suit us. We are the grandchildren of Fatih and we also built the Osmangazi Bridge in Kocaeli in the Gulf. But they have no eye, no ear. I entered to the 'no' tent. I said why you say no. They told me for a more contemporary Turkiye. I said look, the bridge sights. You know what did they say? Why the name of bridge is Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge? Why did not you put Tayyip Erdoğan? Unfortunately, it is like this... We respect the one to say ‘no’, but you also should respect the one to say ‘yes’. Didn’t we launch the solution process? But they did not understand. They unfortunately blasts bombs, dig ditches.” (M. Salih Keskin, Mehmet Aslan - ILKHA)