By Hurriyet Daily News
The Turkish government will exert the utmost effort to deliver targets set for 2023, the centennial of the Turkish Republic, in the areas of democracy and economy “despite continued interventions by some foreign powers,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said.
“The level Turkey has reached in the freedoms and economy reveals that we are step by step coming closer to our 2023 targets. However, it’s also a fact that the problems we had to survive in the last six years have slowed us down,”
Erdoğan said in his address at a ceremony held in the Black Sea province of Samsun on the occasion of the centennial of the Independence War.
Erdoğan recalled that his government set these targets in 2011 as the most assertive development and democracy plan of Turkish history. These targets include making Turkey one of biggest 10 economies in 2023.
“Despite everything, we are sticking to our 2023 goals. We have set a special team in the presidency to this end. A wave of attacks in the fields of security and economy has not ended yet. We are foiling a new plot every other day,” he stressed.
These attacks include interventions on the Turkish economy through interest and currency rates, open and covert embargoes and sanctions threats, Erdoğan said, suggesting that all these actions are “part of a special plot against Turkey.”
Recalling that his governments have been ruling Turkey for the last 17 years, Erdoğan said that they will continue to move towards delivering the targets set for the centennial despite “malign interventions by some foreign powers.”
