Erdoğan rules out snap elections

Photo: AA

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Turkey's next general elections will be held in 2023 as scheduled despite calls for a snap election by the opposition, Prescient and Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said.

"June 2023 is Turkey's election calendar. This is our decision as the People's Alliance, this is the date we announced," Erdoğan said during his party's parliamentary group meeting, referring to the electoral and voting alliance of the AKP and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

The government will strive even harder and take care not to leave Turkey in the hands of the opposition Nation Alliance and its biggest members, the Republican People's Party (CHP) and İYİ (Good) Party, he said.

Erdoğan accused the opposition of "running a campaign of lies," saying, "According to them, everyone in the government, from the president to members of the parliament and bureaucrats, everyone is corrupt, thief, drug smuggler, robber, wrong and bad," he remarked.

"That's why we say we will not leave alone any house we didn't enter, we will not leave alone any heart we did not touch and win over," he added.

"We have been ruling the country with a policy of work and service," he added.

Canal İstanbul

Erdoğan also touted the Canal İstanbul mega-project, saying it will open up a new chapter in the country's development.

"One of the most important features of this project is that it will remove a serious burden from the point of urban transformation and change," he said.

With the project, officials can also focus on the seismic zones in İstanbul, he noted, touching on the risk of earthquakes.

"We want our citizens to continue to live in much safer places," not in "troubled areas," he said.

"We will carry out these operations in İstanbul by constructing new earthquake-resistant houses (along the canal)," he added.

Erdoğan stressed that the canal will be "a source of national pride."