Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stressed that forest fires raging in a number of the country's states should not be used for "political ends".

Erdogan said - during a television interview on Wednesday evening - that the number of planes involved in fighting forest fires has risen to 20, and there are also 51 helicopters.

He added that the firefighting crews continue to fight the fires without stopping, and that there are 187 fires that broke out within 8 days - 15 of them are still ongoing - and some of them have been brought under control.

In response to the opposition, which accused the government of not carrying out its duties to put out the fires to the fullest, Erdogan said that "the state has harnessed all its capabilities to put out the fires," explaining that the world is currently facing the threat of fires, and that many countries are currently facing huge fires.

He pointed out that the Turkish authorities had doubts about the existence of a terrorist or sabotage act behind these fires, and that they investigated this part, and several people were arrested for their involvement in these acts.

Erdogan made it clear that in the families of these detainees there are people linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, stressing at the same time that all intelligence formations and security services continue their investigations on this point, and whoever is found guilty will be punished.


economic growth

On the other hand, Erdogan announced that his country will achieve economic growth of more than 7% in 2021, considering that the leading indicators in the economy indicate continued growth.

He said that the Turkish economy grew by 1.8 percent last year, noting that his country, along with China, is the two countries that have achieved positive growth among the Group of 20 countries with this growth.

Erdogan referred to Turkey's achievements in the field of defense industries, pointing to its achievements in manufacturing drones, both exploratory and armed, and that it has become a rivalry with the pioneers in these industries.

On the efforts to combat the Corona virus, Erdogan said that his government aims to obtain approval for the emergency use of the home-made Turkovac vaccine against Corona as soon as possible, and to move to vaccination with it on a large scale.