Speaking at the 3rd Extraordinary Congress of the AK Party, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, “We are back together after 989 days.”

President Erdoğan, who was the only nominee to the presidency with the signing of 370 delegates, spoke at the hall saying, “We had separated from this hall on the 27th of August 2014 about 3 years ago by saying ‘every end is a new beginning’. Our hearts were never separated, our love and sadness always lived as a single heart. Now, 989 days later we are again looking for the same hall.”

Erdoğan continued his speech by reading surah al-Fatihah, said, “We have said that this is a new beginning when we become a candidate for the President, and we are making a new beginning again today. ‘In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds. Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Master of the Day of Judgment. Thee do we worship, and Thine aid we seek. Show us the straightway. The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace, those whose (portion) is not wrath, and who go not astray,’ amen. We came to this day that we started 16 years ago only demand with the help from Allah. We asked for support from our nation. We have come to the present day because we gave importance to the pray of our nation like the importance of the vote from the polls.”

Erdoğan said, “Just because we embraced principle of ‘make the people live so the state will live,’ we have seen our nationality beside with us in all our difficult times. Because we know that we can meet the demands of democracy with security concerns in this country, we have served everywhere in this country. We made every citizen a first class citizen by taking all the services from justice, security, transportation, to industrial.” (ILKHA)