President Erdoğan performs Friday prayer at Hz. Ali Mosque in Istanbul
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan performed Friday prayer at Hz. Ali Mosque in Istanbul.
Following the prayer, President Erdoğan answered reporters’ questions.
“WE WILL CONTINUE TO PROVIDE MINORITY COMMUNITIES WITH EVERY KIND OF SUPPORT”
In answer to a question as to whether the US President’s definition of the 1915 incidents as “genocide” was brought up during his iftar with the representatives of Turkey’s minority communities two days ago, President Erdoğan said that he had the opportunity to learn directly from themselves whether the minority communities’ representatives had any problems.
Expressing his pleasure to hear about the happiness of the minority communities’ representatives in Turkey, President Erdoğan continued as follows: “We of course have provided and will continue to provide most of them with every kind of support in our power. One such support, as you know, was that we opened the Iron Church with them in Balat. There is also a church in Bakırköy belonging to the Assyrian community for which we already broke the ground. We will hopefully open it after completing its construction in one year. We told them once again that we would help religious communities and minorities regarding whatever they needed.”
“THERE ARE INTENSIVE STUDIES FOR DOMESTIC VACCINE”
Asked about the ongoing studies to develop vaccines against the coronavirus, President Erdoğan said: “Science is the shared property of the whole humanity. There is no place for jealousy in science. A mentality such as ‘we produced this, we will not give it to anybody else’ is a mistaken approach concerning this issue which is related to the health of the whole humanity. Likewise, we have started the process with the Chinese vaccine; have been benefiting from the vaccine developed by the Germans, by Mr. Şahin and his wife, who are Turks; and have also held talks with Mr. Putin for the Russian vaccine Sputnik. We will buy a significant amount from Russia, with joint production planned to be launched in Turkey later on. There are also intensive studies going on in Turkey that we plan to finalize in September or October. We hope to develop our domestic vaccine through these studies. We will use these vaccines not only in Turkey; we are ready to share them with anyone who demands them across the world.”
“WE HAVE BEEN WORKING TO CONTINUE OUR HISTORICAL UNITY WITH THE EGYPTIAN PEOPLE”
Responding to a question about the talks in Cairo between the Turkish and Egyptian delegations, President Erdoğan drew attention to Turkey’s clear stance regarding the Egyptian people.
Pointing to the historical unity between the Egyptian and Turkish peoples, President Erdoğan stated: “Not as enemy brothers, but as friends, we have been working to revive and continue our historical unity with the Egyptian people. As I have previously said, it would sadden Turkey to see the Egyptian people act, forcefully, in solidarity with the Greek people.”
Adding that the talks were first started by the intelligence services and were later maintained by the foreign ministries, President Erdoğan noted that the talks would be further advanced and expanded.
