"AS WE GET UNIFIED AND BE AWARE OF OUR OWN POWER, THIS COUNTRY WILL ALWAYS DEVELOP"

Minister for EU Affairs and the Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis said: "We claimed to have more democracy and more welfare and we started to benefit from them. That is why we are not afraid, that is why we will continue to take steps which should be taken for more democracy with your invocation.

In his speech he made in the inauguration of Sultanbeyli Child and Youth Center that has been built under the scope of Internal Migration Integration Project funded by the EU, Bagis reminded that Turkey's first application to EU was done 50 years ago by Adnan Menderes, the prime minister of the time, and 45 years were wasted.

Bagis said that since 2002, under the leadership of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, they one by one got rid of the trumps that the EU had been putting forward and ended Turkey's 45 years-time hope together with the reforms they carried out, the laws they entered into force, with constitutional amendments and works they have carried out towards changing Turkey's attitude.

Bagis reminded that 11 out of 33 chapters were opened since they acquired the starting date for negotiations in 2005 and said: "More importantly the EU is no more a project just discussed by some elites in five-star hotels. The EU project has become a common project and common enthusiasm of Uncle Ahmet in Yozgat, Aunt Fatma in Kahramanmaras, our children in Sultanbeyli, our brothers in Edirne, our citizens in Artvin and in Siirt"

Bagis stated that most of Turkey's chronic problems were solved in the last 7 years. The state, building highways at the length of six thousand kilometers throughout the Republic, built more than 9 thousand kilometers of it in the last 7 years, one third of the schools open now and one fourth of the hospitals with beds were put into service, the inflation and interest rates were lowered, the per capita income was increased. Bagis continued his speech as follows:

"When all these are considered it can be seen that there isn't any issue Turkey cannot overcome when she realizes her own power and uses her potential efficiently. We will never give credit to the ones trying to scare us, who try to show some problems as insoluble and brothers as enemies of each other. We always believed in democracy. We believed that the economic standards would increase in this country as democratic standards raises. The results are obvious. We claimed to have more democracy and more welfare and we started to benefit from them. That is why we are not afraid, that is why we will continue to take steps which should be taken for more democracy with your invocation."

Stating that with projects such as Sultanbeyli Child and Youth Center, they would do whatever they could in order to bring up the children in contemporary centers and not in the streets and said:

"We will continue to serve without making discrimination among our citizens, and aware of the fact that we are all brothers and that we must solve the problems of everybody. Don't worry. This country will always develop as we unite, realize our own power and don't forget Mehmet Akif's lines. No enemy can give harm when a nation is united, our great poet had said."

In the inauguration State Minister Selma Aliye Kavaf also delivered a speech and after the speeches Minister Bagis and Minister Kavaf have inaugurated the Sultanbeyli Child and Youth Center by cutting the ribbon.Resource: AA