Turkish PM Erdoğan reiterates his call for three children

ANKARA

PM Erdoğan hugs an elderly woman after his speech at a summit.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan repeated his call to Turkish families for at least three children, at a summit held in Ankara yesterday. Speaking at the International Family and Social Policies Summit, the prime minister said that the strength of a nation lies in its families and the strength of families lies in the number of their children.

“One or two children mean bankruptcy. Three children mean we are not improving but not receding either. So, I repeat, at least three children are necessary in each family, because our population risks aging. We are still on the good side, as we still own a young and dynamic population. But we are slowly aging. Presently, the whole western world is trying to cope with this problem. Please do not take our susceptibility lightly, this is a very serious issue,” he said.

Erdoğan also underlined the importance of family values and said, as a conservative democratic party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) focused their whole policy around the idea of strong families.

“There are abstract values that make a household a family. And it is extremely dangerous if that family loses those values. Therefore we are working on developing new projects to protect family values. We took measures to remove the pressure on family unity due to economic problems. We distributed a total of 108 billion Turkish Liras in social aid to citizens in need. In April we started a new program for single mothers who lost their husbands. We are providing them an allowance of 500 liras every two months and so far 225,000 citizens have benefited from these assistance projects. We have more projects to come in the near future,” he said.