Turkey fighting new war of independence: Erdogan

ISTANBUL: Ninety-three years since the foundation of the modern Turkish republic, Presdient Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in his new year’s address on Saturday that the country was fighting a “new war of independence.”

“National unity, territorial integrity, institutions, the economy, foreign policy, in short all of the elements that sustain us as a state are under fierce attack,” Erdogan said.

“Terrorist organisations are only the visible faces and tools in this war. We are essentially fighting the powers behind these organizations,” he said, without specifying what those powers where.

Erdogan also dubbed the attempted coup d’etat in July abominable terrorist history of the republic.

“Turkey has succeeded as “the most attack” in the in arising from this catastrophe and making a new beginning,” he said. Erdogan has consistently blamed the movement of US-based exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen for the failed coup. More than 40,000 people have been arrested in the postcoup crackdown and tens of thousands of civil servants have also lost their jobs as a result. In addition to the “cleansing” of state institutions, Erdogan vowed in his new year’s message that “these cancer cells” would be wiped out at every level of society.

The president committed the population to a long campaign, but he said he was confident the will of the nation was strong enough for the fight.

He finally expressed the hope that 2017 would bring Turkey, the region and the world security, peace, happiness and prosperity. — dpa