Warning from Erdoğan on Books and Cultural Heritage: 'There is no future for those who deny their past'

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke at the "Loyalty to the Book: Bookbinding Art and Restoration Exhibition" program at Tophane-i Amire Culture and Art Center.

The highlights of President Erdoğan's statements are as follows:

Those who have no past cannot have a shot. He who denies his past has no future to build. As a nation, we are the owners of a truly great civilization, a deep-rooted history and a rich cultural heritage. People live with their roots, civilization lives with its roots. The strongest vein that connects us to our roots as a nation and as an individual is our books, filtered from the alembic of our connoisseurs of knowledge, ideas and hearts.

It is not a coincidence that for a while, those who wanted to cut off our nation's ties with its roots targeted our books and libraries.

"IT WAS THROWED OUT"

Most recently, on February 28, 4,500 works, 500 of which belonged to the personal library of Sultan Abdulhamid II, were thrown away from the Istanbul University Library by the tutelary administrators of the period. Mistakes made in the past have a share in the background of cultural desertification.