President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, together with his wife Emine Erdoğan, attended the programme organised by TASC at Rockefeller Plaza in New York. In his speech here, Erdoğan stated that the elections held on 14 and 28 May were well attended from abroad despite all kinds of difficulties and said, "Our nation has protected both its will and its future. On behalf of myself and my nation, I would like to express my gratitude to all my citizens who overcame many difficulties to protect their will. We will continue to work to win the hearts of our citizens whose votes we could not get. We will not allow anyone, any interest account to come between us. We will stick together," he said.
'PEOPLE FROM ALMOST EVERY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD MOBILISED FOR US'
On 6 February, following the earthquake disaster in Turkey, President Erdoğan reminded that almost every country in the world provided material and moral support to Turkey and said: "We are holding this year's meeting with the pain of the earthquakes that our country experienced on 6 February in our hearts. I know that some of our brothers and sisters residing in the USA lost their relatives in this earthquake. I wish God's mercy and condolences to you. 14 million people in 11 provinces were directly affected by these earthquakes. From the first moment of the earthquake, we mobilised all the means of our state for the disaster zone and started to heal our wounds as soon as possible. So far, the construction process of 200 thousand earthquake houses has started. Our aim is to complete the construction of 319 thousand houses within the first year and bring our earthquake victims to their safe homes. In total, we will build 650 thousand houses. In this process, we have once again seen the wisdom of the saying 'a friend is known on a black day'. People from almost every country in the world mobilised for us and stood by our nation with their material and moral support. We felt the support of our brothers and sisters in America whose hearts are beating for Turkey. The aids you delivered to the disaster area helped to heal our wounds."
'WE MUST KEEP OUR RANKS VERY WIDE AGAINST ISLAMOPHOBIA AND RACISM'
In his speech, President Erdoğan drew attention to the increasing racism and Islamophobia in the world in recent years and said, "We should keep our ranks very wide, especially for Islamophobia and racism. We see that this trend is spreading in the world. It is highly probable that the attacks, which mostly target Muslims today, will be directed against groups with different origins, language, culture and beliefs tomorrow. There are interest groups acting to poison Turkish-American relations. By telling the truth, by representing Turkey, we will put a barrier against them. If Islamophobia is not prevented, the perpetrators will become more reckless. As Turkey, we are reacting to this snowballing danger. We never accept that attacking the sanctities of 2 billion Muslims around the world is legitimised under the guise of freedom of opinion. We are seriously carrying out our efforts to keep the issue on the agenda of the international community."
