02.04.2026 15:20
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke at the mass opening ceremony of 563 facilities completed by the State Water Works at the Beştepe National Congress and Culture Center. Erdoğan stated, "The struggle for oil and fossil fuels in the last century will take place in the field of water in the coming period. Looking at the hot conflicts happening around us, we can already see the signs of this."
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke at the collective opening ceremony of 563 facilities completed by the State Water Works at the Beştepe National Congress and Culture Center.
Here are the highlights from Erdoğan's speech:
My esteemed nation, valuable members of our Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, dear guests, I greet you with my heartfelt feelings, respect, and affection. I am very pleased to be with you on this meaningful occasion where we will hold the collective opening of 563 facilities completed by our General Directorate of State Water Works. Welcome to our Presidential Complex, the home of the nation.
I hope that the important investments we will put into service shortly will bring blessings to our country, our nation, and our cities. 54 of them are dams and ponds. 109 are irrigation facilities. 18 are drinking water facilities. 11 are land consolidation and in-field development services. I wish all 563 of our new facilities, including 371 flood control facilities, to be beneficial and auspicious.
With these works, which have a current investment value of 137 billion lira, we have developed a water storage capacity of 896 million cubic meters and opened 1 million 190 thousand decares of land for irrigation. Similarly, we provide 212 million cubic meters of drinking water annually and increase our drinking water treatment capacity by 301,000 cubic meters daily. Through these investments, we will also protect 505 populated areas and 52,400 decares of land from the damages caused by floods, God willing. As part of our consolidation and in-field development activities, we have registered 2 million 20 thousand decares of land. These completed facilities will contribute 22 billion lira annually to our economy, according to current figures. I once again wish the 563 works we will inaugurate shortly through live connections to be beneficial and auspicious. I thank our Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, our General Directorate of State Water Works, our contracting companies, and every brother who contributed to the construction of these works from the project phase to the construction process.
"THIS LAND IS A WATER CIVILIZATION"
Dear guests, I would like to express this first and foremost. These lands, kneaded with the blessed blood of our martyrs and veterans, and flowing with the springs of knowledge and wisdom of our scholars, sages, and spiritual people, are a water civilization in every aspect. It is the homeland of those who, a thousand years ago, established their lodges by the water's edge, sowing seeds of goodness in hearts and minds, and gradually transformed the land into a garden of civilization. In the roots of this nation, which clings to its faith and prays for water to be as precious as itself, water symbolizes purity, cleanliness, beauty, and abundance.
When asked which charity you would prefer to give, our Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, who answered with water, stated that providing water to those who struggle to access it means granting them a life, and he announced that presenting beautiful and sweet water to people would be rewarded by Allah. We are members of such a water civilization that our ancestors shortened the concept of fi sebilillah, which means seeking no other interest than the pleasure of Allah, and named their fountains sebil. These fountains, where even birds are not forgotten, are the works where our spirit, high character, compassion, and mercy have taken form over time. Our ancestors, who viewed water foundations and water fountains as a continuous charity, even treated their patients with the sound of water. With their charitable works, fountains, and water channels, our forefathers built a civilization from scratch. Our water clocks, water scales, and aqueducts are all masterpieces of art and engineering. In summary, water, which holds a very important place in our civilization, culture, art, architecture, and even our engineering activities, has gone far beyond being a basic resource we need to sustain our lives.
"THE MOST STRATEGIC AND VALUABLE RESOURCE IS WATER"
Dear friends, in a century where the competition for power is intensifying in every field, the most strategic and valuable resource, which is also the main element of production and energy, is water. The struggle for oil and fossil fuels in the last century will take place in the field of water in the coming period. We can already see the signs of this when we look at the hot conflicts happening around us. Problems caused by factors such as climate change, drought, population growth, excessive urbanization, and industrialization are increasing the pressure on water resources. Especially these figures clearly reveal the magnitude of the danger we face.
Look, only 2.5% of the total 1.4 billion cubic kilometers of water in the world consists of freshwater. While the world population, which was 3 billion in 1960, has now exceeded 8 billion, there has been no change in the amount of rainfall on earth during the same period. As the need for clean water sources increases, usable water resources are unfortunately rapidly decreasing due to rapid consumption and pollution. Today, 2.2 billion people in the world do not have access to safe drinking water. According to the World Water Development Report, it is predicted that by 2050, approximately 6 billion people will not have access to sufficient clean water. In addition to all this, the climate crisis poses the greatest threat to our water, our source of life. Since we are located in the Mediterranean basin, we are one of the countries that face these threats most severely. In recent years, we have had to deal with many problems due to climate change, from forest fires to flood disasters. Just last year, we intervened in 2,334 forest fires. 81 thousand hectares of our forested area were affected by these fires. We are making our preparations against fires as quickly as possible. This year, by adding 14 new helicopters to our air fleet, we have increased our number of helicopters to 119 and our aerial water dropping capacity to 462 tons. With our 28 planes, 14 drones, 2,766 first response vehicles, 1,953 water tankers, and 878 construction machines, we will fight fires much more effectively this year.
"TURKEY IS AMONG THE COUNTRIES EXPERIENCING WATER STRESS"
Dear guests, Turkey is among the countries experiencing water stress with an annual per capita usable water amount of 1,301 cubic meters. It is also striking that while the average annual rainfall in the world is 990 millimeters, this figure is 574 millimeters in Turkey. This picture shows us that we must protect our water resources before they reach the point of depletion, use them efficiently, and manage them correctly. I emphasize once again that we need to use our waters more consciously, and I particularly express that I expect maximum sensitivity from all our institutions and all our citizens in this regard. We should be careful not to waste not only the water flowing from the tap but also the water flowing from the river.
Our Zero Waste Movement, initiated under the leadership of my wife Emine Erdoğan and which has now turned into a global environmental project, has completed 9 years. With the Zero Waste Movement, we have recovered 90 million tons of waste.
We contributed 365 billion lira to our country's economy. We aim to raise our recovery rate to 60% by 2035 and hopefully to 60% by 2053. At this point, I want to reiterate a truth that I have expressed on different occasions. Dear friends, we see all living and non-living beings as a trust from our Lord, as the ancients used to say. We have elevated our water investments to the peak in the last 23 years to pass this trust on to future generations in the best way, enriching it further. We focused on policies and investments that use water, the cornerstone of our civilization, economically, manage it correctly, and connect our nation to water in the safest way. Since 2002, we have put into service 805 dams, 522 ponds and weirs, 1,890 irrigation facilities, 365 land consolidation projects, and 378 drinking water and wastewater facilities. In the meantime, we have brought 6,234 flood control facilities, 637 hydroelectric power plants, and 148 underground storage and artificial feeding facilities to our country. We completed a total of 19,984 facilities worth four trillion seven hundred billion lira and put them at the service of our nation. With these facilities, we opened up 2.5 million hectares of land for irrigation. We contributed 416 billion lira annually to the Turkish economy. We created agricultural employment for a total of 2.2 million people. We carried out land consolidation work on 7 million 400 thousand hectares. Thus, we reached an installed power of 20,300 megawatts and an annual energy production capacity of 67 billion kilowatt-hours.
"OUR FARMERS ARE SMILING THIS YEAR"
My dear brothers, we thank God, we entered the year 2026 with the blessing of rainfall. Our dams are filling up, our water resources are being renewed. Farmers who faced difficulties last year due to agricultural drought and frost are smiling this year. Hopefully, we aim to reflect this blessing, which increases our hopes, in agriculture, energy, and industry in the strongest way possible. This year, we will complete 300 new water and irrigation facilities.
Of course, I would like to express this particularly. Whether in agriculture, irrigation, transportation, or any other field, the main issue is to have vision and will. Those who care about the troubles of the country and the nation serve. Those who serve find honor in the eyes of justice and the people. The fundamental difference between the incompetent mentality that condemned the capital's citizens to days of thirst and water queues with jerry cans in the middle of winter and the understanding that brought the investments we just watched in a short video to our country is determination, love, and the passion for serving the nation. We are not among those who make excuses; we are among those who find a way to get things done, those who put one stone on top of another. We used the resources that our citizens provided to the state by cutting from their own throats to serve our people and produce works. Hopefully, from now on, despite the opportunists who try to make a storm in a teacup and fill the jug while the water flows, we will continue to squeeze the stone and extract its water, working for this noble nation and for the trust of our martyrs in this blessed land. I say may God be our helper and supporter.
With these thoughts, I wish that the 563 facilities we will inaugurate shortly will once again be a blessing for our nation and our country. I congratulate everyone who contributed, all our institutions. I greet you once again with respect and love, and I entrust you all to God. Thank you, stay well, and take care.