Speaking at AK Party Group Meeting, President Erdoğan said: “We don’t harbor prejudice, animosity or enmity against anyone. Whoever has taken a step towards us, we have run towards them. We maintain the same sincerity and optimism today as well. Together with all our friends who take the hand we extend, we will continue our efforts for peace, justice and prosperity and particularly for the de-escalation of tensions in our region.”
President and Justice and Development (AK) Party Chairman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made a speech at the party’s parliamentary group meeting.
“TURKEY CAN AFFORD TO TURN ITS BACK NEITHER ON THE WEST NOR THE EAST”
Behind the unfounded allegations which associate Turkey with terrorist organizations and which claim that there is a shift in Turkey’s axis lies the annoyance felt by those disturbed by the fact that Turkey increasingly becomes a playmaker in the international arena which is reminiscent of a chessboard, the President said.
Describing Turkey as the only NATO member to engage in close combat against terrorist organizations, first and foremost DAESH, in a wide range of regions, President Erdoğan said that Turkey saved the dignity of democracy in Libya, contributed to protecting Syria’s territorial integrity while also ensuring its own border security with its cross-border military operations, helped the restoration of stability in Somalia and assisted in ending the 30-year-long occupation and looting in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Drawing attention to Turkey’s efforts for the establishment of peace in Afghanistan and for the preservation of tranquility in the Balkans, President Erdoğan further stressed that Turkey also ranks first in the world in term of humanitarian aid proportion to national income.
Turkey doesn’t have any designs over the lands of any other country, particularly those of its neighbors, the President stated, adding that it, however, displays a dignified stance in the face of threats against its own rights and sovereignty.
“Turkey can afford to turn its back neither on the West nor the East,” the President said, pointing out that Ankara can never neglect the Turkic World, Asia, Latin America or Africa, either.
“WE DON’T SEE OUR MULTILATERAL POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND MILITARY COOPERATIONS AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO OUR LONG-STANDING TIES WITH THE US”
“We want to turn a new page in our relations with the US and Europe in the new year,” President Erdoğan stated. “We don’t see our multilateral political, economic and military cooperations as an alternative to our long-standing ties with the US. We also hope the EU may recover as soon as possible from its strategic blindness that distances Turkey from it.”
Expressing his belief that US President-elect Joe Biden will show the necessary sensitivity regarding the relations between Turkey and the US, President Erdoğan went on to say: “We don’t harbor prejudice, animosity or enmity against anyone. Whoever has taken a step towards us, we have run towards them. We maintain the same sincerity and optimism today as well. Together with all our friends who take the hand we extend, we will continue our efforts for peace, justice and prosperity and particularly for the de-escalation of tensions in our region.”
“SHOULD THE ECHR WANT TO BE RESPECTED BY TURKEY, IT MUST FIRST TAKE A LOOK AT ITS OWN CONTRADICTIONS”
As regards the ECHR ruling of Selahattin Demirtaş, President Erdoğan underscored that the ECHR cannot hand down rulings in a manner to replace Turkish courts.
Pointing out that the ECHR has announced a ruling while the domestic legal avenues have yet to be exhausted, President Erdoğan said: “These are all political steps and we know their reasons. Even if we put aside the exception, the justifications of this ruling are openly in contradiction with, for instance, those of the very same court’s ruling on Batasuna in Spain. The court ruled on Batasuna that refusing to openly condemn acts of violence, let alone encourage them, can be deemed punishable. It is a double standard and even hypocrisy for a court, which considers the refusal to denounce a terrorist organization’s act of violence to be support for terrorism, to demand the release of a person that bears the main responsibility for an incident which resulted in the brutal massacre of 39 citizens of ours on 6-8 October, 2014. Should the ECHR want to be respected by Turkey, it must first take a look at its own contradictions.”
Voicing hope for the ECHR not to display the same attitude regarding the FETO cases, President Erdoğan added: “I would like to note that we, otherwise, are not obliged to further tolerate this much double standard and hypocrisy.”