Erdoğan's foreign policy statement: We are in close dialogue with the leader of the Syrian revolution, Ahmed Shara

The Cabinet Meeting, chaired by AKP Chairman and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has concluded at the Presidential Complex. Erdoğan is speaking following the Cabinet Meeting.

Highlights from President Erdoğan's statements:

"I greet you all with my most heartfelt feelings and affection. I send my greetings and love to every one of our citizens who are currently following us on television screens, social media platforms, or radio channels. At the very beginning of my speech, I pray for God's mercy upon the two pilots, one physician, and one medical personnel who passed away yesterday in the ambulance helicopter that crashed into a hospital in Muğla. I wish patience to the families and relatives of our martyrs, and I offer my condolences to our healthcare community.

As you know, yesterday was the 110th anniversary of the Sarıkamış Operation. Today, I once again pray for God's mercy upon our Sarıkamış martyrs and veterans, including my late great-grandfather. I express my gratitude to the heroes who fell to the ground like snow flowers while defending the homeland in the Allahu Ekber and Soğanlı Mountains. May the Almighty grant them peace and make their place in heaven."

"WE ARE PERFECTING OUR ROADMAPS FOR THE COMING YEAR"

"My dear nation, we have just held the final cabinet meeting of 2024. In our cabinet meeting, we discussed many issues ranging from foreign policy to the economy, from our breakthroughs in industry and technology to the management of migration. Our minister colleagues, through their presentations, both comprehensively evaluated the last two weeks and received our instructions for the upcoming period. As I have always emphasized, we are a cadre that has taken the warning 'take yourself to account before you are taken to account' as a guide. While completing 2024, we are on one hand questioning what we have done and what we have not done in the most objective way, and on the other hand, we are perfecting our roadmaps for the coming year."

"WE ARE ADVANCING TOWARDS OUR GOALS WITH DETERMINATION, COURAGE, AND PATIENCE"

"Our sensitivity was manifested in today's cabinet meeting as well. I would like to emphasize this once: we have always competed with ourselves, and we have always raised the bar. Now, we are advancing towards our goals with determination, courage, and patience. We had submitted the 2nd Budget of the Turkey Century of our party's 23rd Presidential Government System to the appreciation of our veteran parliament on October 17. Our proposals for the 2025 Central Government Budget Law and the 2023 Central Government Final Account Law were accepted in the General Assembly on Saturday with 317 'yes' votes."

"WE WILL BE MORE DETERMINED IN OUR FIGHT AGAINST OPPORTUNISTS WHO FUEL INFLATION"

"I pray to Almighty God that the 2025 budget will be auspicious for our country, our nation, and our economy. The most fundamental characteristic of the 2025 budget is that it is a budget that prioritizes investments that cement our country's 22-year gains, economic stability, and social welfare. Both our Vice President and our Minister of Treasury and Finance have explained the details and goals of the budget in a coherent manner. I would like to remind those who say the 2025 budget is not the people's budget of these figures. The disinflation process that began in May will hopefully continue with momentum in 2025. We will be more determined in the new year in our fight against opportunists who fuel inflation by violating competition rules or spreading rumors."

"EARTHQUAKE INVESTMENTS MAINTAIN THEIR PLACE IN THE 2025 BUDGET"

"Healing the wounds of the February 6 earthquakes has been at the top of our agenda for the last two years. In 2023 and 2024, we spent a total of 2.6 trillion liras at current prices for this purpose. That is, we made an expenditure of 75 billion dollars at today's exchange rate. Earthquake investments maintain their place on our agenda in the 2025 budget as well. We have allocated a total of 584 billion liras within the scope of our construction and revitalization activities in the earthquake zone. No matter what 'earthquake tourists' do, we will work tirelessly until our last rightful citizen is reunited with their safe home and workplace. My dear nation, we have given special importance to implementing the social state principle in all budgets we have prepared since 2002."

"651 BILLION LIRAS ALLOCATED FOR SOCIAL ASSISTANCE"

"We have used the people's resources for all of our people, starting from the fringes of society. We will continue to look after our citizens in need in 2025. In this context, the figure we have allocated for social assistance is 651 billion liras. I had shared the details of the support we provide to our citizens in energy during our meeting with retirees. Look, in 2002, a brother of ours earning minimum wage had to set aside 20% of his monthly salary for 200 kWh of electricity used in his home, and 26% for 100 cubic meters of natural gas. Today, it is sufficient for him to set aside 2.4% of his salary for the same amount of electricity and 5.6% for natural gas. A citizen receiving the lowest pension was spending 15.3% of their salary on electricity and 19.3% on natural gas in 2002. Now, these rates have decreased to 3.3% for electricity and 7.7% for natural gas. In 2024, we covered 65 liras of every 100-lira natural gas bill and 60 liras of every 100-lira electricity bill of our citizens."

"WE HAVE ALLOCATED MORE THAN 2.6 TRILLION LIRAS FOR EMPLOYMENT AND PRODUCTION"

"We have allocated 472 billion liras in the budget for 2025 as energy support. Those who came to office with the promise of lowering the price of water and have raised water prices by over 100% in the last 5 years should especially note what we are saying. In many of our cities, our citizens' water bills are coming in higher than their electricity bills. I believe our nation has appreciated and will continue to appreciate this. We have shaped our budget with a citizen-focused approach in other areas as well."

"OUR POSITION FOR 22 YEARS IS CLEAR"

"In our 2025 budget, we have allocated more than 2.6 trillion liras for employment and production. The amount we have allocated for investments is 1 trillion 568 billion liras. Throughout 2025, we will continue our support for our farmers, tradesmen, industrialists, and exporters. Dear friends, our position for 22 years is clear. We are a government that has identified its destiny with the destiny of the country and the nation. We have been walking without stumbling for exactly 22 years on this path we set out on to be the voice of the silent masses and the protector of the destitute."

"WE HAVE HIT THE HARD WALL OF BITTER TRUTHS REGARDING THE OPPOSITION"

"There will not be the slightest change in this line from now on. I must also express a disappointment we have experienced here. We want the opposition parties to change, renew, and update themselves as the world and Turkey change. If the mentality is not changing, at least let the tone change, the style change, the discourse change. Since the day we came to power, we have always been in search of such an opposition, with such a longing for an opposition. However, every time, we have hit the hard wall of bitter truths regarding the opposition."

"NOT A SHRED OF EVOLUTION IS TAKING PLACE IN THE OPPOSITION'S STYLE OF POLITICS"

"An opposition that follows the world, reads developments correctly, draws a horizon for the country and the nation, and above all, has weight to its words, has not yet flourished in our country. Unfortunately, the opposition, as it did in previous meetings, chose to sabotage and provoke the 2025 budget negotiations instead of contributing or making constructive criticism, and chose to terrorize the entire process from the commission stage to the general assembly. In the last budget negotiations, we saw nothing but abstract rhetoric, cheap polemics, and statements reeking of provocation. Years pass, names change, those sitting in the leadership seat change, but not a shred of evolution is taking place in the opposition's style of politics. We say it has been like this, but let it not go on like this anymore. We hope that 2025 will open the door to an improvement, even at a minimum level, in the opposition's mentality and style."

"I congratulate all public institutions and organizations that contributed to the preparation of the budget and final account law proposals, especially our Strategy and Budget Presidency and our Ministry of Treasury and Finance. I express my gratitude to our AK Party group and our People's Alliance partner, the Nationalist Movement Party group, and to the Chairman of the Nationalist Movement Party, Mr. Devlet Bahçeli, for their steadfast stance during the budget negotiations. I also convey my thanks to all our deputies who contributed to the budget process with their proposals, criticisms, and evaluations during the legislative stage."

'CENTRAL BANK RESERVES ROSE TO 163.5 BILLION DOLLARS'

"I would like to share a piece of good news regarding the economy on this occasion. Our Central Bank's reserves are increasing regularly. Our gross reserves rose to 163.5 billion dollars last week. And it has seen the highest level to date. The employment side is also going quite well, thank God. Employment has increased by 1 million people in the last year. The unemployment rate has fallen to 8.8%.

In 2025, we will continue to implement our strategy of growing Turkey qualitatively through investment, employment, production, exports, and current account surplus. We will see the positive effects of our economic program more in many areas in the coming period. My dear nation, esteemed members of the press, since our last cabinet meeting, we have continued our work with a very busy agenda, especially in foreign policy."

'WE BELIEVE THE HISTORIC STEP TAKEN WITH THE ANKARA DECLARATION WILL HELP ESTABLISH LASTING PEACE IN THE HORN OF AFRICA'

"We successfully held our 15th Ambassadors Conference at our complex with a program where critical topics were discussed. We came together with Gazan and Syrian children at the 'Face of Brotherhood' event organized on the occasion of the 76th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On December 11, we hosted Somali President Sheikh Mohamud and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in our country. We had a long meeting exceeding 7 hours with both leaders and their delegations. We have crossed another critical threshold in the Ankara process, which we started 8 months ago to resolve the problems between the two friendly countries. The East Africa region has been on the agenda for many years with tension, hunger, terrorist attacks, and the 'divide, conquer, rule' policies of imperialist powers. We know very well that these insidious scenarios are still in effect. We believe that the historic step taken with the Ankara Declaration will help establish lasting peace, tranquility, and stability in the Horn of Africa. We successfully carried out the culture year we declared within the framework of the 100th anniversary of the establishment of our diplomatic relations with Hungary."

"WE WILL NOT LET OUR RETIREES BE CRUSHED BY INFLATION"

"As you know, we had declared 2024 as the year of retirees. Throughout this year, many projects for our retirees were implemented under the leadership of our Ministry of Labor. On December 16, we came together with the veterans of the Turkey Century to both thank them and have a conversation. We are proud of each of our retirees, whose number exceeds 16 million in our country, and we are working sincerely to improve their quality of life. We have never engaged in peddling hope regarding our retirees. We are not among those who make generous promises in the squares and then forget their promises when they come to office. We are aware of every difficulty experienced and every complaint conveyed. I would like to emphasize once again on this occasion that we are determined not to let our retirees be crushed by inflation."

FOREIGN POLICY

"The depth and closeness of our relations with the friendly and brotherly country of Qatar are known to everyone. Despite the attempts of the former chairman of the main opposition party to dynamite this relationship with lies, we have developed and are developing our cooperation in every field. During the visit of the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim, my brother, to our country, we discussed many issues, especially current issues in Syria. We will support Syria's efforts to heal its wounds, recover, and stand up again with its state and society after 13 years of war. My dear nation, the visit of the Prime Minister of Lebanon, Mr. Najib Mikati, who is the target of Israeli attacks, to our country is extremely valuable to us. Mr. Mikati is striving to carry a heavy burden with honor during one of the most difficult periods of his country. I have full faith that my brother Najib will lead Lebanon to safety with his steadfast and prudent leadership. We, too, will stand by Lebanon with all our means, which will hopefully not disappoint the trust placed in our country and myself during this process."

"WE ARE IN CLOSE DIALOGUE WITH THE LEADER OF THE SYRIAN REVOLUTION, AHMED SHARA"

"A brand new era has begun in Syria. As Syria's neighbor and brother, we are the country that best analyzes the new process. We have taken our place on the right side of history. We have seen that the main issue is not winning elections, but winning hearts. We are in close dialogue with the leader of the Syrian revolution, Ahmed Shara. Names that have a bond of affection with our nation are taking part in the new administration."