President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met with the editors of newspapers and television channels, some writers and academics at the Vahdettin Presidential Palace.
Speaking after the presentation of the S-400 promotional film Erdoğan offered his gratitude to the members of the press for their honourable stance during the purchasing of S-400 which poses an important debate in terms of Turkey's national security and sovereignty.
"Turkey has not compromised the moral and consistent policy it pursues"
Erdoğan evaluated that "In recent years, the world and our region has been experiencing the pains of restructuring. Our country has not compromised the consistent and moral policy that it follows in the face of these new and really critical tests. In the 8th year of the Syrian issue, in the developments in Egypt, Libya, Qatar, many African countries even in the latest Venezuelan incident, we have always acted on this coherent and moral line."
"Turkey is being to punished rather than being praised"
President Erdoğan stated that, Turkey is trying to be punished rather than being praised for its efforts to achieve stability and security in the region, reminded that some NATO member countries supplied Turkey temporarily with air defence systems.
Developments in the Eastern Mediterranean ...
Erdoğan noted that in recent years, another development that triggered the security sensitivity of Turkey has been in the eastern Mediterranean, added "We are taking concrete steps against the ideology that ignores the rights of Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots in the Eastern Mediterranean. Currently, our Fatih and Yavuz drilling vessels, as well as our Barbaros Hayrettin Paşa Seismic Research Vessel, continue their activities in the region regardless of the threats. There are also elements of our Naval and Air Forces in order to ensure the safety of these vessels. We have to follow all developments in the countries of the region, especially in Israel, Egypt, Libya, Algeria and Tunisia carefully."
"We're not preparing for war by purchasing the S-400s."
"The picture that emerges shows that Turkey's purchase of S-400 air defence system indicates that it is purely for peacekeeping in its territory and in the region. We are not preparing for war by purchasing S-400. We strive to guarantee peace and our own national security. It is also the purpose of all our other initiatives to improve our defence industry."
"This is almost an untold threat to disrupt the Turkey - US relationship"
"This man, is an enemy of Turkey. The threat such a person, has brought to the Senate is an untold threat to disrupt virtually Turkey - USA relations. I believe that Mr. Trump will not be deceived by this."
"NATO should be content with this"
Upon the question "How will the acquisition of the S-400 affect NATO's future? If the EU's sanctions come up, will our defence cooperation with EU member states be affected?" Erdoğan, said:
"It will effect NATO strongly. NATO is supposed to be content with it. If there are 3-5 countries that make up NATO's most powerful pillar, one of it is Turkey. Especially in this region Turkey is NATO's strongest pillar."
"We've begun producing smart bombs."
Referring to domestic production, Erdoğan continued his speech as follows:
"For example, smart bombs. I requested from Obama. We did not produce them at the time. Mr. Ibrahim was translating, we talked at Antalya G20 Summit. ‘We'll solve this’ he said, then Obama was gone. What happened? We began producing our own smart bombs. In the same way, for example, we are now producing the winged guidance kit. We have, for example, our famous Boras, now we are producing Bora ourselves. The more we diversify these, the more we increase them, the stronger we will become against the enemy."
Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Minister of National Defence Hulusi Akar, Presidency’s Director of Communications Prof. Fahrettin Altun and Presidential Spokesman İbrahim Kalın also attended the meeting.