President Erdoğan hails 9th International Conquest Cup participants

 

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan expressed his gratitude to the youth who competed in the 9th International Conquest Cup organized by the Archers Foundation and took care of Turkey’s traditional sports branches.

"Today, with our drones, our software, our production and our exports, we repeat the epic we wrote with our archers in the past," Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in a video message broadcast at 8.53 p.m. (1753GMT), the time which corresponds to Turkey’s 2053 milestone that refers to the 600th anniversary of Istanbul’s Ottoman conquest from the Byzantine Empire.

Erdoğan also expressed his gratitude to every member of the "blessed army" that conquered Istanbul, especially Mehmed the Conqueror, who made it an "eternal city" of the nation.

"Just as a tree whose ties with its roots has been severed cannot survive, a society that is disconnected from its roots in belief and culture cannot survive for a long time," Erdoğan said, adding that he expects the youth to be engaged in traditional sports and arts such as archery, horse riding, swordsmanship, calligraphy, ornamentation, and all kinds of modern social and cultural activities with this understanding.

"We show that we are protecting the heritage of our ancestors by reopening Hagia Sophia for worship last year, putting the Grand Camlica Mosque into service the previous year, and performing the first Friday prayer at the Taksim Mosque yesterday," he said.