President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke at the Topkapı Palace Darphane-i Amire Museums Opening Ceremony. The highlights of Erdoğan's speech are as follows:
"We are with you at the opening of the new buildings that will serve as a museum in the Darphane-i Amire Complex. Congratulations to this museum where the distinguished collections of Topkapı Palace are brought together.
I especially invite everyone at home and abroad, especially our citizens in Istanbul, to breathe this atmosphere.
As the Turkish nation, we have a rare acquis with its history, culture, architecture, art and literature. The emergence of this accumulation and the articulation of the works is the work of a sublime ideal that is rooted in centuries and continents. It is a reflection of a magnificent understanding.
Topkapı Palace, which we are currently in, is a masterpiece in itself. Our heartland, which we are building and reviving step by step, is an open-air museum. These works are of course important and valuable. But what is important is to preserve the knowledge we have with a high level of consciousness and to pass it on to the next generations.
THEY TURNED OUR MOSQUES INTO STABLES
Yıldız Palace, one of our most distinguished cultural assets, was operated as a casino and casino. We have witnessed it in many other places. Our rare manuscripts were sold to foreigners as scrap. We went through painful days when our historical mosques were used as warehouses and in some places were turned into barns.
We know very well that there are still those who act with the habits of the old days and those who reckon with the history and cultural codes of the nation. We have not given a chance to the representatives of this mentality for 24 years.
10 THOUSAND 500 WORKS WILL BE SEEN WITH VISITORS
The restorations we carried out in the Darphane-i Amire Complex included 7 buildings and 46 halls. A total of 10,500 works in the inventory of Topkapı Palace will be available to visitors in these museums starting today. Topkapı Palace will hold an exceptional place among the world's museums. There will be 200 maps. In addition to the library with printed books and magazines on the upper floor of the same building, the center where more than 800 thousand written and visual resources are brought together in digital environment will serve researchers.
More than 2,500 pieces of military equipment will be located in this building. This museum will showcase the development and transformation of our military technology. The first weapons museum established in the Ottoman Empire is also located here. Finally, the palace porcelain museum will include porcelains produced in China, Japan, Iran, England, France, Vietnam and Russia, as well as porcelains produced in the Yıldız Porcelain Factory. Topkapı Palace Manuscripts Museum will also be located here.
THOSE WHO DISPUTELY ATTACKED RECEIVED THE BEST ANSWER
When we started these studies 7 years ago, the apparatus of a certain mentality targeted us with ridiculous slanders. They said he was building an office for himself, they said he would use it as his own palace. They were left under the slander they made. Everything they claimed turned out to be lies and unfounded. Those who shamelessly attacked us received the best answer with these museums.
We are transforming Haydarpaşa and Sirkeci stations into breathing culture and art centers with museums, libraries and exhibition halls. We have completed the work in our archaeological museums. We opened the doors of those closed to visitors in Topkapı Palace. We introduced Fatih Mansion, Seferli Ward, Treasury Ward and the last building, Mecidiye Mansion, to visitors in 2023. We opened the Art Museum in 2025. We introduced the painting museum in Dolmabahçe Palace and the glass and crystal museum in Beykoz to our nation.
WE ARE REVIVING EDIRNE PALACE
We restored Hagia Sophia to its original identity in 2020, after 86 years, and embraced it with its community. Now we are taking another very important step. We are reviving the Edirne Palace, one of the greatest works of the Ottoman Empire. We are restoring this magnificent work, which was used for 300 years. When completed next year, Edirne Palace Cedidi Amire will be one of the most magnificent historical monuments of Türkiye.
