Erdoğan vows to complete 'green development'
ISTANBUL
![Erdoğan vows to complete green development](http://image.hurimg.com/i/hurriyet/75/0x0/61853c684e3fe10cc45f2e3d.jpg)
Turkey has rolled up its sleeves to meet its green development which is part of the targets it set for 2053, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said.
“We have laid out plans to develop a total of 404 Nation’s Gardens on 66 million square meters of area in the country’s 81 provinces, and to date we have completed 11 of them,” Erdoğan said during the inauguration of the new Nation’s Garden in the Ümraniye district of Istanbul.
He added that the government targets to complete all those green areas by 2023.
The president reminded that the largest of those gardens will be developed at the site of Atatürk Airport, which will be one of the grandest of its kind in the world. Erdoğan also noted that the urban transformation projects, which initially began in Istanbul, have spread to all provinces across the country.
Saying that Istanbul was once a city of “a sea of mud that made people unhappy,” Erdoğan stressed that they have “converted Istanbul into a cultural center.”
The president also mentioned the Marmara Sea Protection Plan.
“The decision of a special environmental project covering six provinces, including Istanbul, was published on the Official Gazette today [Nov. 5]. We will find solutions to all the regional environmental problems with this Marmara Sea Protection Project.”
Naming 2023 as the year of an “important turn,” Erdoğan said, “Turkey advances on its road with investments, production and employment.”
“Europe is puzzled… The world is baffled due to our determined move,” he added.