ISTANBUL
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said that the country “literally defeated” the Daesh/ISIS terror group, which was “recently attempted to be relaunched as an apparatus for regional plans.”
Türkiye has achieved a “significant success in the strategy of decisively eliminating terrorism at its source,” Erdogan said at the AK Party’s 8th Ordinary Provincial Congress in the Trabzon province.
He said Türkiye has removed the PKK terror group’s extension from the country’s border, referring to the YPG/PKK terror group, thanks to counterterrorism operations Ankara conducted.
Erdogan said that Türkiye “neutralized” 40 so-called high-ranking terrorists in 2024.
They (terrorists) have no choice but to surrender their weapons, abandon terrorism, and disband the organization. The other option is to face the velvet-gloved iron fist of the Republic of Türkiye, which is experiencing the most powerful period of the last century,” Erdogan said.
“The era of relying on weapons, violence, terrorism, and playing the game of canton dreams backed by imperialists has now completely come to an end,” he added.
He said that the new administration in Syria is showing an extremely determined stance on protecting the country’s territorial integrity and unitary structure.
Stressing that Turks, Kurds, Arabs and Persians are “the ancient owners” of this geography, Erdogan said that these civilizations have been together for centuries, sharing a common past.
“God willing, our future is common like our past. For this reason, we will not fall for the games of imperialists who use the ‘divide, conquer, rule’ tactic to turn brothers against each other and exploit their resources. We will not be deceived by those who seek to sow discord in these lands. With insight, wisdom, and strategic intelligence, we will tear down the walls of enmity they try to build between us,” he said.
“We will undoubtedly achieve our goal of a terror-free Türkiye, where conflict, violence, and instability are completely a thing of the past, through unity and solidarity,” he vowed.
“We will not allow new walls to be erected between us and our brothers and sisters with whom we have shared the same land and lived side by side for a thousand years, Erdogan added.
