AK Party Group Meeting

Honorable guests,
My distinguished deputy friends,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I salute you all with my dearest feelings. I welcome all our guests and I wish all the success to this group meeting of ours.
At the beginning of my speech I want to share with you a very pleasent and flattering development for our country and people. As our Group Deputy Chairman just mentioned yesterday our distinguished friend, our brother and Antalya Deputy Mevlut Cavusoglu was elected as the President of Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly. Turkey became a member of Council of Europe in 1949 and after 60 years of membership finally a Turkish Deputy is elected to the presidential post in the Parliamentary Assembly. This is also significant since for the first time a non-western European deputy is being elected as the President. I congratulate my dear friend Mevlut Cavusoglu and wish him success in his endeavors. I want to thank to all the members, who contributed his selection to the presidential post. I also want to thank all our western friends, who supported our candidate.
My distinguished friends,
We are experiencing harsh winter conditions all across the country. We are witnessing; the temperatures falling well below the seasonal averages especially in Black Sea shores and heavy snowfall in most parts of the country. I especially ask to all our mayors and governors for being alert, for taking the necessary precautions and for timely making the warnings. I also want to remind our people to cooperate with the officials in protecting the elder, children and homeless.
My distinguished friends,
Despite the harsh winter conditions we have made some historically-important openings over the weekend in Ankara, Bilecik and Sakarya. You have just seen the related footage. In Elmadag district of the two-lane road bridging Ankara with 43 cities in east was known as the “death ramps” and had long been the nightmare of the drivers. Many lives were lost there and many people were injured there. I visited the construction site in Ramadan of 2008 and had lunch with the workers, contracting firm representatives and my minister friend. I inspected the construction site and ordered the work to be speeded up and finished as soon as possible. So on Saturday we made the opening with a pumped-up crowd despite the cold and snow. We have spent 223 million Lira for the construction of the new road but we foresee a 113 million Lira-worth saving with the shortening of the route. The next day, Sunday, we made the opening of Bozuyuk-Mekece-Sakarya road in Bilecik. We are also proud of this road as we are not used to see this kind of roads in Turkey. The old road there had deadly corners and a maximum width of two lanes. Our citizens using that road are watching us today from their TVs. Now that road has from four to six lanes and can be described as a piece of art. We drilled the mountains with the Ertugrul Gazi and Osman Gazi tunnels with the respective lengths of 3000 and 1500 meters. We always say that we are Khosrow and our Shirin is our people. We are reaching out to them. We have penetrated through the mountains that are deemed impossible to do so. The new roads are just beautiful and those places will have different kind of beauty once the spring comes.

I want to share with you these updated figures. I will be repeating these figures but I have to do so as the media does not give these figures. Media only focuses on the slightest negativities but they are not interested in this kind of good news. Our people are in desperate need of this. In 79 years of time only 6 thousand km-long multilane road was built and in seven years of office we have built 11 thousand km. Why do you not show and tell all these? What do you have to lose? Our people need this excitement and pride. Why are you avoiding telling and showing this? Those who will use these roads will appreciate it and inevitably those opposed it in the first place will also be using these roads. Let them use it as well because we are only doing our job. As our ancestors said, we will keep working and it does not matter for us whether people would know about our work or not. This is where our difference lies. As of today the total length of multilane roads has reached to 17.5 thousand km. What matters is the actual amount of work being done. As Ziya Pasa said; people will die but their work will live on. We will always be remembered with our works. The same day we travelled to Sakarya under heavy snowfall. We opened 26 facilities built by state and philanthropists. The enthusiastic participation of our citizens in all three opening despite the rough weather conditions made us happy. Sharing this enthusiasm of our people made us happy. I want to thank our people for it.

My distinguished brothers and sisters,

This way of governing is brought to the Turkish politics by AK Party. Apart from our desires and goals for Turkey, our words and written documents; our works speak for themselves. AK Party is showcasing a very different exercise by bringing service to all our 81 cities as oppose to those who believe politics is only engaging in empty debates. AK Party government has a piece of work in every one of our 81 cities. The AK Party government struggles to reach out each one of our 72.5 million people. Until today we have only spoken through our works and we will continue to speak through our services. We have managed to squeeze; the opening in Elmadag, Bilecik and Sakarya, the opening of Muhsin Ertugrul Theater in Istanbul, the ceremony of Istanbul’s Culture Capital, the meetings with Russia, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to the last two weeks. Had we stuck to the debates in Ankara, we would not be able to do all these activities. This is the difference between the AK Party government and the opposition, my distinguished brothers and sisters. They are producing chaos and we are creating jobs in Anatolia and in cities of Thrace region. They are producing artificial debates and we are producing service for entire Turkey. They are bringing back the old and useless debates and we are producing works to serve our people. They are destructive and we are productive. This is where our difference lies. They are talking about civilian dictatorship and civilian fascism whereas we struggle to enhance our democracy. In a nutshell they talk and we work.

We are exhibiting our true nature not only by our discourse but also with our actions and applications. Those who want to wear AK Party down -while it fights for democracy and change- with allegations are the representatives of status quo, deadlock and tension. While AK Party’s record of democracy is full of success; the record of those who try to slander AK Party are full of black marks. I am sure you know very well who represents the mindset of single party-rule as it is quite obvious and well-known. It is obvious and well-know who advocates the criminal organizations in our country. When you look at it, the deputies of opposition are always in Silivri to defend. They have been doing this for a long time. When you think about single party-rule and single party-era, what is the first think come to mind? It is CHP. The provincial chairman of CHP used to be the mayor and the governor at the same time. In which developed or developing country in the history of democracy could something like this happen? This can only be found in authoritarian or totalitarian regimes. It suits well to CHP and it is part of CHP’s history. Now the media members favoring CHP calls our government “single-party dictate”. It is a shame really as they should first look in the mirror. We were not assigned to this office but we were elected by our people in polls. And my distinguished brothers and sisters it is extremely important to note that we do not carry hidden classifications. Our people know it very well. We came to office with a very clear and transparent state. Thus we shall successfully carry this sacred responsibility of our people to the end. It is obvious who comes to the mind first when we talk about schism, intolerance, tension, and crisis in our country. It is obvious who wants to bring wardship to politics, who remains silent when democracy was compromised, who cooperates with those attempting to undermine the will of our nation. My dear nation recognizes these masks and the faces behind these masks very well. My nation knows these scenarios very well as well as they memorized the actors in these plays. Why the CHP is not given the office in this country? Because our people have had enough of it and they are tired of it. I want make it crystal clear that we are going through an extremely important process for Turkey. We are going through an extremely important days in the name of our democracy, national sovereignty, state of law, our future and transparency. 

The fact to the matter is this, my distinguished friends:

Is Turkey going to change or it will be left unchanged? Is Turkey going to stick with status quo or change to follow its route in the direction of modern world? Are the chronic problems going to continue; to affect our people, to harm the interest of our country, and to aim at the unity and solidarity or are we going to solve the problems and provide some breathing room to our people? Should our dear nation settle with a limping democracy or the quality and standards of the democracy will be enhanced? Is Turkey going to have an advanced democracy and a modern legal structure or will be forced to stick with a unique structure that is backward and incomplete? Our attitude towards these problems has been very clear and straight for the past seven years.

My distinguished friends and my fellow citizens watching us on TV,

We line up with change, shifting of status quo, democracy and democratization, Turkey to record more breakthroughs, a more advanced democracy and legal system, and more freedom. As the way we executed the reforms for the past seven years, from now on we will not slow down the pace of democratization. We want to broaden the vision and horizon of Turkey and we know that Turkey is bigger than the fit tailored for it. It could have been a political approach to keep the status quo without making any bold moves and staying away the problems. We could have settled with just running the routine errands as most of the previous governments did. However, that would be betraying to the responsibility of our people and we have never made such a choice. We could have very well ignored the problems of our people but we are in love with this nation and country. Those who see the problems as a source of their own interest and thus seek to exploit them have the comfort to turn their backs to the problems. However, we are aware of the fact that every sort of self-interest and exploitation harm the country. We have never pursued any personal or party-related interest and we never will. We have always said that we are ready to lose if Turkey is to win. The number of votes or the offices we will take are irrelevant to us; what matters is the well-being of Turkey and the future of our people. The real threat to this country and people are the exploitation merchants and interest organizations. Those who want the problems to continue to exist, the status quo to remain intact and favors a pro-wardship understanding are the ones who engage in exploitation and place their own, organizational or party’s interest above the interest of Turkey. Those who favor solution, law, democracy and work on the problems of the nation are the ones that actually work for Turkey and Turkish nation and are in love with the people. Since AK Party takes the path of our nation it favors solution, change, democracy and law. For AK Party is in love with Turkey. The reason for AK Party’s existence is to provide service to Turkey. AK Party exists to be a servant to the people not to be the master of people. The reason for the criminal organizations to be brought to the justice and their dirty games to be exposed today is the strong stance shown by the AK Party. If today the dirty plans, scenarios are exposed and can be openly and freely discussed and criticized it is all thanks to the firm stance that has been displayed. The courageous stance of the government, AK Party and our people paved the way for Turkey to unite against the malevolent intentions.

My distinguished brothers and sisters,

Some columnists are trying to give pep talks to us. No one shall do such a thing. We know exactly what we are doing. We know very well what to do and when to do. We had planned all these before we started our journey. If you can freely write about all these today in your columns then you should ask yourselves why you were unable to do so seven years ago. There were some who were able to write and we applauded them for it and we still do. However, those who were unable to write back then and now are able to write should make self-questioning. And they should not try to give us pep talks. They should first analyze the law and understand how these things work in a state of law. We will not act on rage and make a mistake. We will not cause any harm to our people. We will stand tall but we will not cause an escalation. This is what Turkey needs. We are taking a risk, standing tall, acting responsibly and struggling for the well-being of Turkey and our democratic legal system. Everyone should act on the same understanding of responsibility if they believe in Turkey, democracy, and especially national will. Those who cannot protect Turkey’s law are also unable to protect their own law. Those who do not know their law and limits are unable to act responsibly for this country, to be prudent and lead this country to a bright future.

It is a shame for Turkish politics that those who are unable to top AK Party are now seeking anti-democratic solutions and they are ignoring the attempts aiming at democracy and law. Look, 17 years ago on January, 24 Ugur Mumcu was murdered in front of his apartment. After the incident certain sections were unjustly accused and the identity of those responsible for the assassination was covered. The case was closed in a way that left behind many question marks unanswered. Same thing goes for Bahriye Ucok, Cetin Emec, Necip Hablemitoglu and Abdi Ipekci. The perpetrators of many attacks and assassinations were unable to be indentified. The true motives behind these assassinations and attacks were not clearly discovered and certain sections were held responsible. Oh, dear… The history lays down the facts. But look, everything is slowly surfacing and becoming clear. All our efforts are for removing the cast of mystery over the assassinations of Hrant Dink, Abdi Ipekci, Ugur Mumcu and the other terrible attacks and prevent such things from happening ever again. We are doing it by our discretion in legislative and executive. The rest is on the judiciary. We can only do so much and we have been doing it so far. There you have it; the suspects –not the people who staged the whole scheme but the executors- of Hrant Dink’s assassination were captured within 32 hours. The people behind this assassination and the connections are slowly being revealed.

The same thing happened with the incident in Council of State; remember the headlines following the incident. And now what? It turns out to be connected with the Ergenekon case. Look at the new findings. They rushed into a judgment using their prejudices and held responsible a certain section for the incident. We are working to shed light to the grand scheme and the big picture hiding behind the gunman and the role players so that this kind of ill-intended scenarios can never be put in play in Turkey ever again. For every ill-intended scenario goes against the democracy, legal system, fellowship and unity of this country, and the employment, bread, peace and welfare of our people. Every attempt to weaken the democracy, every plan to undermine the laws is a danger and threat to the perpetuity of our nation and state. Those who derive benefits and use it as a tool for exploitation should know that these ill-intended scenarios are cursed and they will draw them into darkness and charge them guilty in the conscience of humanity. Frankly we cannot single-handedly fight against this unlawfulness. Starting with the opposition a broad-based support from every section bears vital importance. I leave the opposition’s advocacy of criminal organizations, efforts to mislead and confuse the public opinion, and provoking the process to the judgment of our dear nation. Who is afraid of the revelation of the real perpetrators of many murders and who wants to cover it up? Who is worried about the revelation of hidden affairs? Is it possible to protect the law and our country by undermining every incident and coming up with a cover-up story for it?

Whenever we take a step for democratization and transparency we find resistance on the grounds of status quo that opposes the change and transformation. The minute “Constitutional Court” is mentioned certain sections step in immediately. There is no such thing! Are we not the sine quo non element of parliamentary democracy? Making constitution and changing laws are primary functions of the Parliament, are they not? When deemed necessary, these tasks will be executed as it has been done since the foundation of the Republic. However, the minute we talk about these issues they start to chant “we do now want it”. They are members of “we do not want it”-family. It is always like this. Those who caused the energy of our country to be spent with the ugly incident of 367 ended their silence and assuming a role that challenges the democracy, national sovereignty and the nation itself. Unfortunately the opposition follows these smart (!) people and joins their bandwagon. There is no government or opposition when it comes to the struggle for democracy. For the love of God, could it be a proper way of opposition to object democracy, law and freedom just because the government advertizes these concepts? Both the government and the opposition should be on the same side when it comes to democracy.

We will stay calm and prudent on the face of all the claims and scenarios, my distinguished friends. Everybody is free to act the way they see fit but we will be sincere. We will not be dragged into the debates and fall into the traps that they want us to be dragged and fallen. We will continue to be constructive. We will talk through our services, works and the intentions that aim the benefit of Turkey. We will not act aggressively against the aggressive approach of the opposition both in and out of the National Assembly and we will act responsibly despite their irresponsible behaviors. We will solve everything within the confines of law. We will continue to elevate and enhance law and democracy because we do not want to be a state of legislation. We want to be a state of law and this is all we care. We are going to share the truths with all their dimensions with our people. We took this responsibility from our people and we will be held accountable only to our people. We will reveal to our dear nation the plays, traps and ill-intended scenarios that are designed against the will of our people. We will place the wisdom and prudence of our people above everything else.

Look, we have reached to an important stage in National Unity and Fellowship Project, which is one of the most important projects of the Republic. What do we want? We want the national unity. We want coexistence. We want fellowship and we want to achieve it within the democratic opening process. I should first express this: While we were taking these steps the opposition objected it just because of their personal desires and interest. I leave MHP aside because they do nothing more than insulting. However, the reports prepared in the past provide a curios inconsistency and contradiction in this process for the CHP. Those who went as far as saying “Kurdish should be taught in private schools” are today dismissing the use of Kurdish language –not even as the primary language for education- in private conversations, in broadcasting and in schools as an elective course. Today they describe all these as separatism. They say that they did not prepare such a report. Those reports can still be found in the official website of CHP. In the heading of the documents it says report and CHP. The day I made my speech in the Parliament, Mister Chairman shouted that they do not have such a report. The next day we gave the link to this report on their own website and had he gone the trouble of searching it he could have found it. And somehow some media groups published this incident. They said that the Prime Minister has turned out to be right. We never take such steps without completing the groundwork and research first. They relate the slightest incident to the National Unity and Fellowship Project.

Look, everybody should face the fact that the terrorist activities which have been going on for the past 30 years, sneakily place seeds of antagonism to our social peace, fellowship and tranquility. Some might want to ignore it but local incidents, reactions to certain ethnic and religious groups did not come about during this period. Some say that these things are happening because the Prime Minister mentioned the ethnic groups. This is plainly being blind and deaf and avoiding the facts. This is just being away from the realities of people, society and country. This is the mindset that escalated the terror to these levels. They ignore the issue of terrorism, issues of my Kurdish-descent people, issues of Romany, Alaoite and minorities but that does not make these issues go away. On the contrary they even grow bigger. Like Rumi said it; the world does not go away when you close your eyes. These problems grow bigger whether you see them or not and we wanted to stop the spread of these seeds of provocation and mischief. We prepared a booklet on this issue and we started to publish it on Friday. We answer 30 different claims in this booklet and manifest our real and genuine intentions by doing so. I ask the members of our organization to read this booklet carefully and spread our answers there to as many people as possible.

Look, we have done some work as part of the National Unity and Fellowship Project. We took some steps lately. Now we are focusing on our short, medium and long term steps. In the next few days hopefully we are going to bring some law proposals to the General Assembly of the Parliament as part of our medium-term plans. We are taking historically-important steps towards democratization with new mechanisms such as the Undersecretary for Public Order and Security, Commission for Discrimination, and Independent Mechanism to File Complain on Law Enforcement Agencies. Apart from this kind of legal regulations, we have also speeded up our work on the statute and our economic and social plans. The process will continue to be exploited as it had been done so far. Those who get uncomfortable with the problems being solved will get more aggressive and try to block the process. We cannot let that happen and together we have to tell our people the bright future we are preparing with this process using a constructive and sincere language. Thus our promotion and media division will hold numerous conferences in a number of cities open for the members of our organization and public in an intense fashion. Our friends will participate to these conferences and make speeches. We are going to start the second phase of our National Unity and Fellowship Project, and the democratic opening with our friends. Nearly 20 deputy chairman, minister and deputy will participate to this undertaking and we speedily start the conferences and symposiums Turkey-wide.

My distinguished brothers and sisters, there is another important subject matter we should talk about. I want to address our brothers and sisters watching us on TV. Regardless of their political inclinations all our citizens have a special place in our hearts. What does this mean? This is our approach towards the issue of racism.

My distinguished friends,

Racism has never existed in our land. Racism has never had the ground to flourish in this land. While many countries have past records of racism, we do not have a single record of racism. We should carefully consider and understand the reasons behind this phenomenon. Racism is an illness that is strictly rejected by our culture, civilization, history and beliefs. In our civilization there is; no domination of the rich over the poor, no domination of the black over the white, no domination of the townsmen over the villager, no domination of the west over the east, and no domination of the north over the east and never will. No one can be classified as a second or third class citizen due to the ethnicity of his/her parents, faith, creed, skin color, culture and language. It is a crime against humanity to act otherwise. The ideal of unity can only be achieved with an understanding that embraces differences as richness. If we are to be one and together then we should cherish our differences. Unity does not mean to ignore the differences, to rasp them into annihilation and make every person exactly the same. By engaging in racism and ignoring the differences the unity cannot be achieved. It will only increase the separation and boosts rage and hatred. We have to be extremely careful in the face of the thread of secret attempts to spread racist agitation nation-wide. Some might try to commit a crime against humanity to derive political rant and gain votes. It is therefore necessary for us to come up with answers using our history, culture and civilization. The concept of nation covers all the ethnicities, races and even beliefs and creeds. It stands above all these concepts. True nationalism is never racism. True nationalism is never the domination of one race over another. True nationalism is to defend common ideals by building a common future using the common history and civilization as base. All our states from Seljuk to Ottoman Empire and Turkish Republic have been based on this very premise.

My distinguished brothers and sisters,

We have to promote an understanding of nationalism that unites on common ideals and walks hand in hand to the future for the perpetuity of Turkey against a racist mindset which completely contradicts with our culture, history and civilization. Our understanding of nationalism is not nationalism of skull. This, we have to know very well. Today what is brought to our people as nationalism is a primitive nationalism that turns its back to the world, ignores the universal values, goes against the fundamental rights and freedoms, and separates Turkey from the modern world and modern concepts. This kind of nationalism has no left or right-wing inclinations. It is why we say that the style of management that took over CHP and MHP are exactly the same, they are basically soul mates. Favoring status quo, denial and imposition are part of the DNA of the executives of these parties. The only thing they know is valor, producing crisis, feeding off the tension and seeking interest out of deadlock. They oppose the National Unity and Fellowship Project despite the prudent would not object or hesitate to support the project. Those who produce racism-based policies and engage in agitation, provocation want to block the process and speed up the mechanisms of exploitation. We are going through a tough but –at the same time- historically important process. Today we continue to walk in our way by placing the interest of the country and nation, perpetuity of Turkey above everything and breasting the difficulties as we have been doing it for the past seven years. Everything we do is for our dear nation and Turkey. We are going to run a lot. We are going to run day and night, through thick and thin because we are working to make up for an enormous deficiency. We will continue to walk by preserving our enthusiasm, excitement, sincerity and courage. We will keep on working in the fields of education, health care, justice, security, energy and agriculture in every corner of Turkey –even reaching out to the remote villages through the KOYDES project-. We will preserve the voice of soul, reaching out to the hearts and prove our difference with our works and services.

My distinguished brothers and sisters,

While ending my speech with these thoughts, I wish you all a successful week in your parliamentary work and thank all our guests for joining us today for our group meeting. I salute you all with love and regards. Thank you and God bless.