President Erdoğan visits Yassıada

 

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Yassıada, an island located in the Sea of Marmara where former Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and his minister friends were sentenced to death following the May 27, 1960 coup d’état and which was officially renamed “Democracy and Freedoms Island” in 2013.

President Erdoğan answered reporters’ questions during the visit. Recalling that the late Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and his minister friends Hasan Polatkan and Fatin Rüştü Zorlu were tried in Yassıada and executed in İmralı following the May 27, 1960 coup d’état, President Erdoğan underlined that the era of coups d’état has ended in Turkey. Drawing attention to an ongoing project to re-inaugurate the island as a symbol of democracy and freedoms, President Erdoğan noted that the project will have been completed by the end of the year. 

Accompanying President Erdoğan during the visit were Vice President Fuat Oktay, Minister of Interior Süleyman Soylu, Minister of Treasury and Finance Berat Albayrak, Minister of Environment and Urbanization Murat Kurum, Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy and Minister of Youth and Sports Mehmet Muharrem Kasapoğlu.