CHRISTMAS MESSAGE FROM EGEMEN BAĞIŞ

I congratulate the Christmas of our Christian citizens and extend my best wishes for peace and welfare of humanity. We are living together on the same land for centuries with feelings of tolerance and brotherhood for one another. We are making every effort with a great devotion to further reinforce this brotherhood and strengthen the unity and solidarity of our country.

In the last eleven years, our government has been highly sensitive with a view to achieving these goals.

The most concrete manifestation of this sensitivity has been the reforms we have realised in the EU accession process.

We have no other goal than furthering our company of love with different faith groups in our country on the basis of democracy and freedoms.

Fortunately, the determination we have demonstrated in the last eleven years under the leadership of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is being appreciated by different faith groups and Turkey’s determination for advanced democracy is more strongly echoed. 

We no more speak the language of the past, we do not accept any taboos and we have realised the dream of Turkey where all the issues can be discussed courageously and frankly.

Our determination and the pace of our reform agenda surpassing even the EU Member States have also paved the way for some historic steps towards solution of the problems of different faith groups in Turkey.

We will continue to further the democratic standards of this country by keeping our EU perspective alive and without any compromise in our reform determination.

It is with these sentiments and considerations that I extend my best wishes to the Christian world on the occasion of Christmas celebrations and hope Christmas brings peace, welfare and happiness to the whole world.