Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Thursday came up with a new definition of “freedoms” and said freedoms are gained through infrastructure projects such as the building of bridges, tunnels and airports.
Speaking at one of his regular meetings with muhtars, or neighborhood heads, at his presidential palace in Ankara, Erdoğan accused the West of not having any concerns about freedoms and implied that Western countries were supporting terrorism.
“Oh, the West. You defended them [terrorists], you stood behind them or next to them. In this world, you don’t have any problem or concern about freedoms. This is not freedom. Freedom is presenting the virtue of living humanely to the people. It comes from the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, from Marmaray, from the Eurasia Tunnel, the Osman Gazi Bridge, the Çanakkale Bridge and a number of airports,” he said.
The president said many international actors, being mainly the EU, are directing baseless accusations towards Turkey.
“I’m not even mentioning the lies and hypocrisy of the countries that we call strategic allies. No matter what reports you prepare, the owners of our reports are here. We don’t care about reports prepared by Hans or George. They think that if they attack Turkey from all sides, they will make us surrender,” Erdoğan said in reference to reports prepared by international organizations that include criticisms about Turkey’s human rights violations or give low rankings to the Turkish economy.