* Photo: Anadolu Agency (AA)
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President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan addressed his party's 7th Ordinary Provincial Congresses in Sakarya, Yalova, Kırklareli, Edirne and Çanakkale provinces via video conference earlier today (January 20).
Most recently, main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has made a call to Erdoğan, inviting him to condemn the recent assaults and threats targeting opposition politicians and critical journalists in Turkey. However, these calls have remained unanswered.
Erdoğan said, "We will not bother with the ones wasting the country's time and the nation's energy with polemics based on lies and slanders."
CLICK - Kılıçdaroğlu 'expects Erdoğan to condemn violence'
'We continue to build a great, strong Turkey'
As reported by the state-run Anadolu Agency (AA), addressing his party's congresses, Erdoğan said that the government was "gearing up to carry the country to the highest level of the global, political, and economic system amid the ongoing fight against the novel coronavirus outbreak."
"We do not only fight the pandemic in the current period we are going through, but also prepare to take Turkey to the highest level of the global, political, and economic system," said Erdoğan and briefly added:
"We continue to build a great and strong Turkey, thwarting the games and foiling the traps of tutelage, terrorist organizations, putschists and of those who inflict these scourges on our country.
"We will continue to feel the excitement and joy of new projects, new openings and new beginnings for Turkey's growth and development."
'We won't bother with them'
Further in his speech, Erdoğan briefly said, "We will, of course, not bother with the ones who are wasting the country's time and the nation's energy with the meaningless polemics based on lies and slanders.
"As required by our respect for the nation, we will never lose our touch with our real agenda, while revealing their lies and aspersions."
Addressing the main opposition CHP, Erdoğan has referred to the AKP's People's Alliance with the Nationalist Party (MHP) as follows:
"We, as the People's Alliance, see, even now, and believe that the ones who cannot face the scandals of harassment, rape, theft and immorality within their own parties will be taught a hard lesson by our nation. We leave them alone with their own darkness and with their own ugliness." (DŞ/SD)
