Turkish president to announce various defense projects soon

By Merve Aydogan

ANKARA (AA) - Türkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday pledged to soon announce various projects that will further increase Turkish army's strength on land, air, and sea.

"We are at the stage of making our defense industry projects -- which we are carrying out with care, diligence, and resolve -- complement our political and economic strengths," Erdogan said at an iftar dinner with Turkish army's humanitarian aid brigade in Ankara.

Erdogan said the Turkish army is making history with its successes "from border security to counter-terrorism efforts, from international missions to humanitarian aid activities," and they are reconstructing the quake-hit regions in accordance with the realities of the region.

On Feb. 6, the magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 quakes struck 11 provinces — Adana, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Elazig, Hatay, Gaziantep, Kahramanmaras, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye, and Sanliurfa.

More than 13.5 million people in Türkiye have been affected by the devastating quakes, as well as many others in northern Syria.

"We have provided 3.3 million families with safe and peaceful homes with our urban transformation projects and another 1.2 million families with TOKI (the country's housing development administration) houses. We are renovating our public buildings at the same time in a planned manner," the president added.

Erdogan further recalled the political and humanitarian threats surrounding Türkiye, adding that "political crises, conflicts, wars, tensions" are never absent and directly affect the region Türkiye is located in.