President Erdoğan's 'earthquake' message: 'Exploiting it for politics...'

AKP Chairman and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made statements at the "UEFA Istanbul Representative Office Opening Ceremony."

Starting his speech here by touching upon sports events in Turkey, Erdoğan said, "As Turkey, we have more than enough capacity to handle all kinds of international sports events, including the Olympics."

Erdoğan argued that Turkey has completed the infrastructure deficiencies affecting sports.

In the final part of his speech, touching upon the 6.2 magnitude earthquake that occurred in Istanbul yesterday (April 23), Erdoğan stated, "We never approve of issues that shake and affect us all, such as earthquakes, being exploited for the polemics of daily politics."

Erdoğan said, "These are not times for politicking, but times for being one, being together, showing solidarity, and remembering our brotherhood as a nation."

Highlights from Erdoğan's statements are as follows:

"I am happy to be with you on the occasion of the opening of UEFA's Istanbul representative office. I hope the representative office will lead to good things. As Turkey, we have more than enough capacity to handle all kinds of international sports events, including the Olympics.

We successfully hosted the Champions League final in 2005, the UEFA final in 2009, the FIFA U-20 World Cup in 2013, and the UEFA Super Cup final in 2019. Our teams appear in UEFA organizations every year. Our National Team played in the quarterfinals of the European Championship. It won the hearts of football fans with the football it played. The National Team earned the right to take part in the Nations League League A. We will host the 2026 Europa League and 2027 Conference League finals. We will organize the 2032 European Championship in our country together with Italy.

In football, we demolished stadiums that had mostly completed their lifespan and built new facilities in their place. 38 of the stadiums across Turkey have been put into service, while the construction of 4 and the project and tender processes for 4 others are ongoing. We have also completed our infrastructure deficiencies that affect sports.

"EARTHQUAKES SHOULD NOT BE EXPLOITED FOR POLITICS"

I convey my get-well-soon wishes to all our citizens affected by the earthquake that occurred yesterday; we gave the necessary instructions at the meeting held with the participation of our ministers and bureaucrats. Our greatest consolation is that there was no loss of life. We will evaluate the issue thoroughly at our upcoming Cabinet meeting and then make the necessary statements to the public.

We never approve of issues that shake and affect us all, such as earthquakes, being exploited for the polemics of daily politics; we do not want to enter into arguments during such sensitive times, and we see this as disrespectful to our nation. We also invite the opportunists who are in a race to grab logs from a flood to act with a sense of responsibility.

These are not times for politicking, but times for being one, being together, showing solidarity, and remembering our brotherhood as a nation. Everything that harms this empathy is unnecessary.

Without looking at what the marginals who oppose everything say, we must focus on rapidly implementing urban transformation projects."