Erdoğan meets top business leaders

ANKARA- Anadolu Agency

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on May 1 met with a group of major national business leaders in the capital Ankara.     

The closed-door meeting with board members of the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TÜSİAD) took place in the presidential complex, according to the Turkish presidency.     

Founded in 1971, TÜSİAD is an independent non-governmental organization dedicated to promoting public welfare through private enterprise.     

Later, speaking at the event in the presidential complex in the capital Ankara, he went on to say that Turkey is a "unique" country by all measures and added: "The potential of Turkey is so great that it is sufficient for 182 million, let alone 82 million [Turkey's current population]."       

Erdoğan also criticized governments from the years before 2002, when his ruling AKP came to power, accusing them of exercising discrimination among labor unions.       

"Victimizing people who had no agenda other than putting dinner on the table for political or ideological reasons and depriving them of their jobs is a very heavy burden to bear," he said.