UPDATE - Türkiye monitors all steps of Greece, intervenes in case of need, Turkish President Erdogan says

UPDATES WITH MORE REMARKS BY TURKISH PRESIDENT

By Muhammed Enes Calli and Necva Tastan

ISTANBUL (AA) - Türkiye monitors all steps of Greece and intervenes in case of need, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday.

Speaking at a parliamentary group meeting in Ankara, Erdogan said Türkiye will continue protecting the Turkish minority in Western Thrace.

Erdogan emphasized that the same situation applies to the rights of the Turkish Cypriot people, who have been subjected to "injustice, unlawfulness, and discrimination for nearly three-quarters of a century since the 1960s."

He noted that Western institutions and organizations have done nothing while these oppressions occurred.

Türkiye and the Turkish Cypriots are fed up with federalism-based proposals, he stressed.

Erdogan affirmed the commitment to continue efforts within the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Organization of Turkic States to achieve recognition for the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

"We aim to improve our friendship with all countries and increase the number of our friends," he added.

Regarding Moody's upgrade of Türkiye's rating on Friday, Erdogan said it was an 11-year belated step as Türkiye has much higher economic capacity.

Moody's announced Friday it upgraded Türkiye's long-term foreign- and domestic-currency issuer and foreign-currency senior unsecured ratings to B1 from B3.

The global rating agency said the outlook remains positive.

"As the cost of the earthquake, which has reached $104 billion, decreases and as our policies yield results, we will make any additional resources available primarily to retirees and our people," Erdogan said.

On Feb. 6, 2023, magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 quakes struck 11 Turkish provinces -- Adana, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Elazig, Hatay, Gaziantep, Kahramanmaras, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye, and Sanliurfa.

A total of 53,537 people were killed and more than 107,000 others were injured.

Over 14 million people in Türkiye were affected by the quakes, as well as many others in northern Syria.

"Our goal is to permanently increase the well-being of our people without putting our economy into a vicious cycle that fuels inflation," Erdogan added.