Highlights from President Erdoğan's statements are as follows: Dear people of Şanlıurfa, valuable members of our healthcare community, valuable ladies, my precious young brothers; I greet you with my most heartfelt feelings, respect and affection. After a break of about 2 years, I am fortunate to be in Şanlıurfa, which lives up to its name with its fame, splendor and civilizational heritage.
We just experienced a different excitement with TEKNOFEST youth. Now we are with my brothers from Şanlıurfa. Şanlıurfa did not spare its legendary sincere hospitality from us today. Şanlıurfa embraced us with love again today. He showed his loyalty to the covenant. As always, he embraced us with longing. I express my gratitude to you for your love, affection and blessings. We missed Şanlıurfa and our brothers from Şanlıurfa. Today I saw that the people of Şanlıurfa also missed us.
The late poet Halide Nusret Hanım actually translated our feelings in this poem, in which she describes her longing for Şanlıurfa:
"Your dream is in my heart, piece by piece, every moment,
Kale, Ayn-ı Zeliha, Dergâh, Halilürrahman...
A different beauty in every corner, Elvan Elvan,
Every corner of you is a different paradise, Urfa is your life, Urfa is your homeland!
You, O blessed land, are the bed of saints!
I have no words for those who don't hear, you are the stop for those who hear,
You are the tent of brave Aries and maned lions,
Urfa, hero Urfa, soul Urfa, homeland Urfa!”
I pray that God will always cherish Şanlıurfa and make the solidarity between us permanent.
My dear brothers and sisters, Urfa is a city that has shown the whole world how to stand up when its independence and future are challenged, and has earned its glorious title through its struggle. We are trying to protect Urfa, which has a special place in our history and in our hearts, in the best way possible.
"WE TAKE OUR POWER FROM OUR NATION"
With the support we have received from you and your blessings, our honor and dignity recognizes the trust you have placed on us, and we do not let that trust fall to the ground. We strive to pay our debt of gratitude to Şanlıurfa by building new works. Because we get our strength not from the West, where people constantly write letters of complaint, but only from our nation, from you. We exist in these positions to serve you. If you are there, we are too. As long as your support and prayers are with us, we will continue to do justice to this. As long as you stand by us like a mountain, I hope we will continue to say no stopping, continue to serve.
As we came to Şanlıurfa today, we came with our hands full again. We are introducing Urfa to our city hospitals project, which I call my dream in health and which I have always been honored to bring to our country. You see this magnificent work. Once we do it, we do it this way. This is how we build the work that Şanlıurfa deserves. Today, we are putting our Şanlıurfa City Hospital, which will move to the next level in healthcare, to your service.
Our city hospital has truly become a work worthy of the glory of Urfa, with its closed area of 500 thousand square meters, 2 thousand bed capacity, 545 of which are intensive care units, 451 polyclinic rooms, 6 operating rooms, a parking lot for 3 thousand 620 vehicles and other outbuildings. I believe that this magnificent investment, worth a total of 39 billion lira, will bring our city's health care standard to the top.
Of course, when you build such a hospital, the transportation problem also needs to be solved. We are also putting into service the 1.7-kilometer-long connection road and the 191-meter-long bridge that we built for easy access to our hospital. I wish you good luck. I congratulate all the institutions, organizations and companies that contributed to bringing our city hospital to Şanlıurfa. I especially congratulate my engineers, technicians and workers who contributed to the construction of this work.
I would also like to express this here: My brothers, the city hospital is our latest health investment in Urfa. So far, we have invested 61 billion lira in health in Şanlıurfa. We built 129 health facilities, including 19 hospitals with 3,970 beds, including our city hospital. Our total investment of 8.5 billion lira continues. The construction of 16 health facilities, including the 100-bed Harran State Hospital, the 100-bed Siverek Maternity and Childbirth Hospital, and the 200-bed additional building of Viranşehir State Hospital, is ongoing.
TERRORIST-FREE Türkiye PROCESS
Our mountains and plains are rejoicing. As terrorism-free Türkiye progressed, cities developed. Thank God, there have been no lamentations coming from the houses for 2 years.
