Erdogan pledges to be in nation's service until 2023

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressed on Sunday a crowd of over ten thousand in the fourth congress of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Ankara full of party delegates, senior officials as well as foreign guests. Having been elected as the chairman of party for the last time until 2015 with a huge majority of votes, Erdogan signaled that he will not leave the political arena. "This is not a farewell. This is a rest, a break. This is a rest between the notes of the endless song. This is not a recess, this is a promise to keep and vow that we gave before. We have a bright future. Our country has the potential to be one of the greatest powers of its region and the world. We will continue to advance toward our 2023 targets and build Turkey’s future hand in hand with our nation," Erdogan said. In his last convention speech as the leader of AKP, Erdogan vowed to deliver a brand new constitution based on fundamental human rights to replace the decades-long military era-drafted constitution. Stating that military coups would never again be on the agenda in Turkey, "Let everybody know this: Anybody who intervenes or attempt to intervene in the democratic system will be brought to account in the courts of law of the people," Erdogan said. Erdogan also talked about the steps the AKP government has taken for the settlement of the Kurdish issue, Erdogan said, "It's the AKP that put a stop to the decades-long assimilation policies towards the Kurds," he remarked, and cited as examples the state television channel TRT 6 starting to broadcast in Kurdish for 24 hours a day and the elimination of obstacles to Kurdish as a language. In his speech, Erdogan also praised about the economic successes achieved during the rule of the AKP, saying that Turkey's debts to the IMF stood at $23.5 billion in 2002, whereas today it's only $1.3 billion. Erdogan added that Turkey's gross national product, which was $230 billion when the AKP came to power at the end of 2002, now stands at $771 billion at the end of 2011. Erdogan’s speech was translated into seven languages simultaneously, and a booklet that circulated in the congress hall titled "2023 political vision of the AK Party" was distributed.