President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan delivered a speech at the Victory Day Concert at the Presidential Complex. Highlighting August as an exceptional “month of victories”, President Erdoğan said: “We have come to the end of this special month, which has written its name in golden letters in our history with many achievements from Manzikert to Belgrade, from Mohács to Cyprus. We are closing August with the anniversary of a great victory that paved the way for the establishment of our Republic, our last state in Anatolia. On August 26, 1922, our army launched the Great Offensive with the ‘attack’ order given by Ghazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Our heroic army, which smashed the enemy lines one by one, destroyed a significant part of the Greek occupation forces and opened the way to İzmir with the Battle of the Commander-in-Chief on August 30. Fifteen days after the start of the Great Offensive, Turkish flags were flying in the skies of Izmir, which had been ravaged by the fleeing enemy. Thus, we won the war we fought on the field against the enemy, who had defiled the lands of Anatolia, our eternal homeland, with their treacherous ambitions and dirty boots for nearly 3.5 years. With the Great Offensive, like all our victories, we showed once again to our friends and foes that there was no sacrifice we could not make and no difficulty we could not overcome for our independence and future.” “WE ARE UNITED AROUND THE VISION OF THE CENTURY OF TÜRKİYE” Noting that Türkiye’s century-long Republican period has a separate adventure in itself, President Erdoğan said: “By leaving behind a century with its bitter-sweet moments, we proved the depth and strength of the roots of our Republic, which is the last link in our series of states, each of which is the heir and representative of the other. 101 years have passed since the Great Offensive and 100 years since the founding of our Republic. Today, we are united around the vision of the Century of Türkiye with the same feeling, determination and resolve as a nation.” Underlining that those who do not know where they come from and where they have been cannot not know where they are going, President Erdoğan noted that some people in Türkiye are persistently trying to push the nation into pessimism with delusions, some of which are lies, some of which are false, and some of which are distortions. “Those who ignore our millennia-long presence in our geography and try to portray everything as merely the moment we live in are never innocent,” President Erdoğan said. “With the support of global communication channels, a false image of Türkiye is being constructed both inside and outside the country.” “However, this is not the real picture at all. Of course, we have troubles, problems and issues to solve today, as we did yesterday, and we will have them in the future in different forms. But today we are also living in the most advantageous period of the last two centuries in terms of infrastructure and management capacity. Today, the Republic of Türkiye is much stronger and much more advanced than it was a quarter century, half a century, a century ago, with all its political, economic and military capabilities. When we say that we will make Türkiye one of the 10 largest, strongest and most prosperous states in the world, we count on this infrastructure, this level, this equipment,” President Erdoğan said. “WE ARE NOW ADVANCING ON OUR PATH TO BUILD THE CENTURY OF TÜRKİYE” “The era of those who sucked the energy of the country and the nation with heroic rhetoric for years, who presented their own cowardice and weaknesses as the politics of the state is over,” President Erdoğan underlined. “We are now advancing on our path to build the Century of Türkiye by relying on the vision of its administration, the power of its state, and the wisdom and sagacity of its nation. This is not an unsubstantiated, hollow, baseless self-confidence, but the truth.” “Wherever you go in the world, from east to west, north to south, from heads of state to strategy organizations, from civil society representatives to citizens, everyone is talking about Türkiye’s rise. Our friends talk about this rise with hope and joy. Our enemies, on the other hand, follow this reality with anger and bitterness. We have achieved this success despite those who are trying to make Türkiye withdraw into itself again, to drag it into vicious bickering, meaningless fights and discussions that do not benefit anyone. Therefore, we have never allowed anyone to undermine these achievements, which are the product of the centuries-old dreams of the country and the nation, and we will never allow anyone to do so. Together with our nation, which reads the world, knows Türkiye’s true potential and realizes the importance of what it has, we will continue to move step by step towards our goals,” President Erdoğan said. “Yesterday, we said ‘2023’ and thankfully, we have not let anyone down. We have built an infrastructure worthy of the 100th anniversary of our Republic with its education, health, security, justice, transportation, energy, industry, trade, agriculture, sports and social support. Today, we are talking about the Century of Türkiye, and inshallah, we will deliver our promises once again. The rise of Türkiye, which is the address of solution to all crises in its region, the hope of the oppressed, which has eliminated all threats to its security and prosperity, and shares its political and military power with its friends, will continue. We leave what we will say tomorrow to our youth,” President Erdoğan said. “As we see the horizons, vision, knowledge, excitement, capability and energy of our youth on occasions such as TEKNOFEST, we look with confidence at the future of Türkiye,” President Erdoğan underscored.