Breaking News: Erdoğan announces 2028 and 2029 goals: Signals candidacy once again! 'Unlike opposition parties...'

AKP Chairman and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made statements at his party's 8th Ordinary Provincial Congress in Van.

Highlights from Erdoğan's statements are as follows:

"Everyone who has passed through this organization is a representative of the AK Party in the district, province, and region where they live. From now on, we will embrace all of Turkey as a whole without discriminating between Turks, Kurds, Zazas, Alevis, or Sunnis. We will not give credit to discrimination based on language, culture, origin, or lifestyle, and we will not allow our nation to be polarized.

"WE ARE CHASING GREAT GOALS"

As the sole hope of our nation, we are on a long and narrow road. What we have done is certainly important, but it is not enough. We are not focusing on saving the day, but on the future. We are acting with half-century projections. We are chasing the great goals we have longed for for centuries. We are managing processes under the guidance of a thousand-year legacy and a hundred-year horizon.

We do not have a mindset like the opposition parties that seeks fault in others, especially in the nation.

Twisting numbers or producing various analyses by, so to speak, pulling water from 40 different streams, does not suit us or the AK Party at all.

Our goal is not to let our party's vote share fall below 50 percent. Our goal is to cross the finish line in elections in all 81 provinces and in each of our 922 districts.

Our goal as the AK Party and the People's Alliance is to find a way to enter the hearts of 85 million people.

It is our duty to courageously account for every result that falls short of these goals.

With this understanding, if we do not question how we went from 18 metropolitan, 30 provincial, and 592 district municipalities won in 2014, to 15 metropolitan, 24 provincial, and 535 district municipalities in 2019, and to 12 metropolitan, 12 provincial, and 356 district municipalities in 2024, we will face greater difficulties in the next election.

For this reason, we do not view our congresses merely as a change of scenery. We see every congress as a relay race and a change of guard.

In our congresses, we share our vision for the future with our nation and determine the leading cadres who will carry us to the next elections. Accordingly, our goal is as follows:

God willing, we will win the 2028 presidential and parliamentary elections as the People's Alliance with a vote share well above 50 percent.

Following that, we will make our preparations for the 2029 elections to ensure that the flag of the AK Party and the People's Alliance's municipal service and works flies in at least two-thirds of the metropolitan, provincial, and district municipalities.

"WE WILL EMBRACE EACH OTHER MORE TIGHTLY ONCE THE TERROR BARRIER IS BROKEN"

Sometimes with identity politics, sometimes with sectarian and factional provocations, they built walls between us with bricks of hatred. Thus, they caused Turkey to lose time. After we completely rid our country of the scourge of terrorism that has been sucking our blood for forty years, we will hopefully run toward our goals. Once the terror barrier placed between the 85 million is broken, we will embrace each other more tightly. I am pleased to see that different political parties share a common sensitivity on this issue.

"THE ADVANTAGEOUS CLIMATE IS AN OPPORTUNITY"

I see the blood loss experienced by the terrorist organization as a result of our operations and the advantageous climate created in our region with the revolution in Syria as an opportunity to eliminate this terror issue. We will definitely achieve the goal of a Turkey without terror. But if different calculations are pursued here, we will continue the struggle we are already waging against terror even more decisively.

Until now, we have always conducted politics on the route drawn by our nation. We have never deviated from democracy. We will struggle to keep the 85 million living in brotherhood."