President and AKP Chairman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan speaks at Sakarya rally

President and AKP Chairman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made statements at a rally organized by his party at Sakarya Democracy Square.

The key points emphasized in Erdoğan's speech are as follows:

"As we see the current state of the alliance before us, we say that Turkey and the Turkish nation must have had some good deeds saved up. The May elections were a turning point.

According to official figures, there are currently 60 thousand people in the square. This is what suits Sakarya anyway.

"Only those who look with the eye of the heart can see the bonds between us and Sakarya. I have come to Sakarya, which embraces every color of our spiritual geography, to long for you. Sakarya is also the guarantee of our looking to the future with confidence.

This city, which did not give way to traitors on July 15th just as it did during the National Struggle, is the shining star of the Century of Turkey. Unlike those who were with us for a time but then changed their path, Sakarya has never lost its direction.

The country's second-largest party is occupied with internal strife. Yesterday, they trampled on the Chairman they had presented as the presidential candidate to lead Turkey. It is unclear what will happen to those they paraded around as Vice President. The scandals at the congress were followed by fights over candidate selection. They see nothing but their own personal careers. They have been like this since the single-party era.

REMARKS ON LOCAL ELECTIONS

Our nation, with its support at the ballot box on March 31, is not demanding a share of political rent, but rather the realization of this vision.

Sakarya is the heart of Turkey and the geography in which Turkey is located. Many bloody wars were fought to take these lands. Anatolia is also a graveyard of civilizations. Many states were founded and collapsed in these lands. As the Turkish nation, we have been struggling and sacrificing our lives to defend these lands since Malazgirt.

A century ago, we saved these lands by sacrificing hundreds of thousands of our children in Çanakkale and during the National Struggle. For the last 40 years, we have been waging a struggle against the separatist terrorist organization that targets our unity, our togetherness, and our brotherhood. It has slaughtered tens of thousands of people—soldiers, police, public officials, village guards, the elderly, and the young—and torn them from us. We did not surrender this paradise homeland, every inch of which is watered with the blood of martyrs, to invaders, traitors, or terrorists.

There are no terrorist organizations left inside the country anymore. Finally, they wanted to establish a terrorist organization to our south. We disrupted this scenario with our operations. We destroyed them with UAVs, armed drones, and Akıncı drones.

Now, most recently, we have brought out the Kaan. We will continue this struggle until the last terrorist is neutralized. If we want to live in peace and security in these lands as Turkey and the Turkish nation, what we must do is clear. We will have a strong army and a strong defense industry. We will have it at sea, in the air, and on land. It is a necessity to be strong in every field for Turkey. Neither international law, nor the alliances we are a member of, nor the UN can protect us against our enemies. The only thing that can protect us is our own strength, our own power.

We remember what happened in Bosnia 30 years ago. Our Bosnian brothers and sisters were subjected to genocide. Western states did not even lift a finger. 2 million people were slaughtered in Iraq. Karabakh remained under occupation for years in Azerbaijan. Many massacres were carried out, especially in Khojaly. 1 million people were killed in Syria, and 12 million people were forced to migrate. No one took a step.

30 thousand innocent Palestinians were martyred in Gaza. Neither the West nor the UN Security Council made any effort to stop the Israeli brutality. The UN Security Council cannot even call for an immediate ceasefire in Israel. Western powers continue to provide all kinds of weapons support to the occupying Israeli army. If a disaster were to befall us tomorrow, the scene we would face would be no different from this.

When the threats from DAESH and the PKK toward our country from Syria intensified, the countries we call allies dismantled and took away their air defense systems. They even prevented us from buying pistols, even though we are among the world's largest producers today.

Then we started making them ourselves, and now they want them from us. Possessing the Kaan, Akıncı, Anadolu, Anka, Fırtına howitzers, the Altay tank, and missile systems is a matter of survival for us.

Those who cannot feel the pride of being one of the 4 countries in the world capable of producing a 5th-generation fighter jet should question their love for their country and nation.

In the last 21 years, we have begun to reap the rewards of our investments in the defense sector, both in terms of our security and exports. We have become capable of meeting the needs of friendly and brotherly countries along with our own. Last year, we reached a record export figure of 5.5 billion dollars.

If Turkey has a regional and global power goal today, it is because of the works and services we have brought to our country for 21 years. Every city and every inch of our country's land has benefited from these investments.

We have invested over 183 billion liras in Sakarya."