Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said local elections scheduled for March 31 would be his last vote, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Friday.
Erdogan, modern Turkey’s most successful politician, has led the country for more than two decades. A winner of more than a dozen elections since 2002, Erdogan was re-elected for a five-year term during hotly contested elections in May 2023.
“This is a final for me, under the mandate given by the law this is my last election,” Erdogan said. “The result that will come out will be the transferring of a legacy to my siblings who will come after me,” he was cited as saying by Anadolu.
President Recep Recep Tayyip Erdogan also said on Saturday Ankara “firmly backs” Palestinian militant group Hamas.
“No-one can make us qualify Hamas as a terrorist organization,” he said in a speech in Istanbul. “Turkiye is a country that speaks openly with Hamas leaders and firmly backs them.” Erdogan has called Israel a “terrorist state” and accused it of conducting a “genocide” in Gaza.—Agencies
