Here are the highlights from Erdoğan's statements: I wholeheartedly greet all my citizens living in Kırklareli, with its districts and villages. I would like to thank the beautiful people of Kırklareli for embracing us with longing. I pray that God bless our love and solidarity forever.
"WE ARE PROUD OF BRINGING ANOTHER STRATEGIC PROJECT IN THE FIELD OF TRANSPORTATION TO OUR COUNTRY"
Today, we are with you to inaugurate a very important investment. We are proud to bring another strategic project in the field of transportation to our country. First of all, I would like to thank the European Union Commissioner for Enlargement, Ms. Marta Kos, who shared our excitement with us here today. We are very pleased to host Mr. Kos in our country on this occasion. I hope that the Çerkezköy-Kapıkule section of the Halkalı-Kapıkule High Speed Train Line, which we have opened, will be beneficial to our city, our Thrace region and Türkiye. I would like to thank all our institutions, especially our Ministry of Transport, our contractor companies, and all my brothers, from workers to engineers, who contributed to the presentation of this important investment to the service of our nation. I wholeheartedly congratulate every single laborer whose name I cannot list here.
As you know, Halkalı-Kapıkule High Speed Train Line is one of our transportation projects that will add vision to our country with its total length of 229 kilometers. Our project consists of 3 stages. The Çerkezköy-Kapıkule section, with a length of 153 kilometers, is the longest stage of our project. Our line, which will have a design and operating speed of 200 kilometers per hour, was built as a double track, electrical and signaled. There are 31 bridges, 8 cut-and-cover tunnels of 2,520 meters in length, 2 viaducts, 114 underpasses and overpasses and 175 culverts on the line. Thus, by including Tekirdağ in Kırklareli and Edirne in the high-speed train network, we are extending our high-speed train network from Çerkezköy to Kapıkule.
"HALKALI-KAPIKULE TRAVEL TIME WILL BE REDUCED FROM 4 HOURS TO 1 HOUR 30 MINUTES"
I would like to express this here with pleasure. With the commissioning of our project, a new era will begin in which we will see its effects in a wide area. First of all, passenger travel time between Halkalı-Kapıkule will decrease from 4 hours to 1 hour 30 minutes. Freight transportation time will decrease from 8 hours 30 minutes to 3 hours 30 minutes. The capacity of the railway line will approximately quadruple. We expect the annual passenger capacity to increase from 600 thousand to 3 million and the annual cargo capacity to increase from 1.5 million tons to 9.5 million tons. This means, my dear brothers and sisters. Transportation will accelerate. Logistics will become stronger and travel time will decrease. As a result, production will increase, exports will increase, employment will increase, and hopefully trade and tourism will become more active. Our project will not only unite hearts and cities. At the same time, it will make serious contributions to the economies of Thrace and Türkiye.
Another important point is this. We are increasing our railway capacity in Kapıkule, Türkiye's gateway to Europe. We are increasing the number of roads in the station area from 23 to 42 and the total line length from 15,675 meters to 51,000 meters. Within the scope of the project, we are building new station buildings in Babaeski, Lüleburgaz and Büyük Karıştıran. We are rebuilding Kapıkule and Edirne stations buildings. The freight station personnel building and locomotive maintenance workshop in Çerkezköy are also included in the scope of the project. Thus, we provide not only the main line, but all elements of the line with a modern and strong structure. I wish you good luck.
"THIS LINE WILL BE A LOGISTICS STEEL THAT ACCELERATES Türkiye'S REACHING ITS EXPORT TARGETS"
Please do not miss this point. We cannot limit the importance of the Halkalı-Kapıkule line only to Thrace. This line also strengthens the European connection of the common corridor extending to Europe via Baku-Tbilisi-Kars and Marmaray. Halkalı-Kapıkule Project is a critical part of the 2,094 kilometer section of the 6,314 kilometer Development Corridor passing through Türkiye. It will form the European connection at the western end of the Development Road, which will start from Fav Port and extend to Europe through our country. This table actually shows us this. Our transportation investments are no longer road, bridge and railway investments, but have turned into the most strategic links of global trade routes. Halkalı-Kapıkule line will facilitate the access of our industrial centers and ports, especially the organized industrial zones in Istanbul, Kocaeli, Tekirdağ and Thrace, to European markets. Therefore, this line will hopefully be a vein connecting Anatolia's production to European markets and a logistics backbone that will accelerate Türkiye's achievement of its export targets. I hope that this important project, which I believe will make great contributions to the Turkish economy along with the Thrace Region, will be beneficial. I would especially like to express that I feel very happy to bring such a strategic investment to Kırklareli and our entire region. I pray that God does not separate us from the path of service to you and the Turkish nation.
"WE MADE Türkiye UPGRADED IN 24 YEARS"
Dear brothers and sisters, valued guests, our transportation investments are one of the areas where we have literally made progress in Türkiye in 24 years. During our rule, the current value of our transportation investments increased to 355 billion dollars. The share of our railways in this is approximately 80 billion dollars. We expanded our railway network to 13,919 kilometers. We increased our electrified line length from 2,122 kilometers to 7,274 kilometers. We achieved an increase of 243 percent. Our signal line length increased from 2,505 kilometers to 8,419 kilometers. Our increase here was 236 percent. Once again, we were the ones who introduced our country to the comfort of high-speed train. My brothers, we took it from scratch and built a 2,251 kilometer long high-speed train line to our country. Today, 51 percent of our population benefits from high-speed train services. With the completion of the Çerkezköy-Kapıkule line, the length of our high-speed train lines will increase to 2,604 kilometers. The number of provinces with direct high-speed train connections will be 14. We want to increase this to 27 cities by the end of 2028. We continue our railway investments all over Türkiye. A total of 4,858 kilometers of railway line is currently under construction. Our goal for 2053 is to increase our railway line length to 28,590 kilometers.
My dear brothers and sisters, my dear friends, I would like to emphasize once again a deep difference that I believe you see very clearly. You too see our agenda. You also follow what we are busy with, what we work for, what our goals and dreams are. Our agenda is to serve you. There is something to contribute to our country. We were in Şanlıurfa last week. We opened our city hospital with a capacity of 2,000 beds in Urfa. At TEKNOFEST, we witnessed the proud projects of our young people, who are the hope of Türkiye in the Southeast. Previously, we opened the 4th runway of Istanbul Airport and additional investments. Previously, we put our 1,458-bed Samsun City Hospital into service in Samsun, which is an investment of 17 billion lira. Today we are here. We don't stop, we don't rest, we work with love seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. We produce action, action. We produce service, service. We don't just talk, we put stone after stone. We are running day and night to prepare Türkiye for the new century.
"YOU WILL HAVE TO ACCOUNT FOR YOUR MONEY TOWERS BEFORE YOU SPEAK WORDS TO OTHERS"
So, what do those who constantly criticize us and constantly tease us do? They are doing the same thing today as they have been doing for 24 years. Pay attention, there are no concrete projects on their agenda. If you want lies, there are plenty of them. They have no suggestions that will solve the nation's problems, other than populist promises that even they do not believe in. If there is, it's a lie, a scam, speculation. It's not a political party, it's like a center for producing slander. It's like they're a cauldron of gossip. They only seek to produce disinformation, they only seek to throw mud, they only seek to slander, they only seek to infect us with their dirt. With the tactics they learned from the FETO scoundrels, they attack us regardless of what is given to them, without checking whether it is right or wrong. They attack our values through extreme examples. With all due respect, they are up to their necks in corruption and immorality. And they come out and shamelessly criticize us. My brothers, look, this is not politics. This is not called opposition. This does not mean holding people to account on behalf of the public. Once you have to give account of your money towers before speaking ill of others. We have 32 hours of footage of the plot. You will pay for the baklava boxes you said "I watched". First of all, you will be held accountable for the municipalities that you turned into barley fields, turned into farms of friends and relatives, and robbed and turned into onions.
"WE DO NOT GIVE BONUS TO UNPRINCIPLES, DISGRACED POLITICS"
You will go from city to city, from square to square, to hold accountable those who steal the nation's property, and you will also attempt to teach us a lesson in political ethics. We do not allow this. We do not give credit to this unprincipled politics, this disgraceful politics. I've said it many times before. I'm saying it again today. Whoever lays his hands on the nation's rights, law and trust will find us, and all institutions of the state with its judiciary, security and finance. Those who exceed the limits of law and legitimacy also exceed the limits of morality. We do not and cannot have anything to do with them. The judiciary is already sticking to the person who commits a crime. He doesn't leave it there, he grabs those who prove the crime without hesitation. And we have demonstrated our determination and sensitivity on this issue to our nation many times for 24 years. But they should also know that we will never allow neither screen hitmen nor politicians disguised as executioners of dignity or extrajudicial executions. We will not tolerate an operation against our staff using dirty methods, slander and discrediting campaigns. Morality is the harbor of both politics and the media. It is honesty. We stand in the same place today as we did on the first day. We are and will continue to take action seriously against injustice, lawlessness and greed, despite the abusers. We will not deviate one millimeter from justice, morality, conscience, and especially the line of fairness. We will neither be deceived nor fall into a trap, nor will we be carried away by someone's wind of lies. Hopefully, we will manage this sensitive process with common sense, coolness, wisdom and foresight. May my nation be relieved. Trust us. But also be alert and careful. My nation should not fall into the trap of benefiting from political opportunists with bad records. We are doing what is necessary. We treat the issue with the meticulousness of a surgeon. I pray that God will help us. With these thoughts, I hope that the Çerkezköy-Kapıkule section of the Halkalı-Kapıkule High Speed Train Line will be beneficial to you and our nation again. I congratulate once again those who contributed, and I entrust you to God until we meet again. Thank you, live long, stay healthy.
