JOINT INAUGRATION IN ZEYTINBURNU

The investments made by Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and Zeytinburnu Municipality have been taken into service with a joint augmentation organised in Adliye Square.

In the ceremony Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis addressed the citizens and said: "You elected a leader about whom some impertinent people said that he could not even become a village headman as your Prime Minister. You did not make him only the Prime Minister of Turkey but also the voice of world conscience."

Bagis said: "Thankfully, we have a Prime Minister who stands with justice and challenges injustice, wants peace and who is a hope for millions not only in Turkey but in all over the world." He also added that in 1994 when Recep Tayyip Erdogan became Istanbul Metropolitan Mayor he had taken over a city with great traffic problems, where bulks of garbage exploded and people suffered disk herniation as a result of carrying water.

Noting that, in the past years, due to the air pollution in Istanbul the newspapers used to distribute gas- masks as their promotion, Bagis said "Kadir Topbas solved the problems of Istanbul thanks to your determination and he, taking over this great responsibility, continued his achievement in Istanbul."

Stating that Topbas made the greatest investments in the history of the Republic, Bagıs said metrobus line, which would carry one million passengers, was a service joining the continents.

Indicating that the services provided by Prime Minister Erdogan and Topbas were echoed throughout Turkey, Bagis continued as follows:

"Whenever the Chairman of the main opposition party meets a comer, he sends him to us. Be at ease Mr Baykal, we will do what he deserves. We don't even consider the promising inspectors as rivals. We only accept our records as a rival. We try to break our own records. Despite the preventions against us, you have carried AKP to power, you have omitted 6 zeros from Turkish Lira, you have decreased the interest rates, you have started the negotiations with the European Union. Today hundreds of thousands of houses have been built in Turkey thanks to your determination. People have started to live in modern houses. Never shall anybody attempt to teach us modernization. We have accomplished what they couldn't do throughout the history of the Republic in 7 years."

Reminding the Cyprus Issue in his speech, Bagis said: "For decades, they have tried to show Turkey and Cyprus as an obstacle to peace. But thank God, we have removed the obstacles without withdrawing any of our soldiers and without giving even a small a piece of our land."

Bagis said "Many governments laying claim to be nationalists, social democrats have come and gone. They neither provided the people with the assistance concerning social democracy nor could they raise national consciousness and togetherness. Thank God we have realized all of these."

In the opening, Turgay Avcı, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and Kadir Topbas, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor, each delivered speeches.

Resource: AA