President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Istanbul would complete its urban transformation in five years, clearing all earthquake risky structures, as he together with Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Chairman Devlet Bahçeli, attended a ceremony on Saturday for newly built village houses in Gaziantep's Belpınar and Mesthüyük villages, and Türkoğlu Özbek village of Kahramanmaraş which were ravaged by Feb. 6 earthquakes.
Stating that this year's Ramadan and Eid-al-Fitr were under the shadow of the wounds inflicted on the hearts and the destruction caused in homes by the Feb. 6 earthquakes, Erdoğan wished Allah's mercy to the more than 50,000 citizens who lost their lives in the earthquakes and patience to their relatives.
"After the last earthquake disaster, we immediately rolled up our sleeves. We laid the foundations and started construction on the 15th day of the earthquake in order to provide our people with safe buildings," Erdoğan said.
"In line with our determinations, we are building 650,000 new homes, which include 507,000 houses and 143,000 village houses, in the earthquake zone. We plan to get our cities back on their feet by delivering 319,000 of them within a year."
President Erdoğan stated that during all of his recent visits to the earthquake zone, they ceremonies for new residences and village houses in every city. "We have started the construction process of more than 105,000 houses so far. We have laid the foundations of almost half of them," he said.
Stating that they are not only building houses, that they are building brand new living spaces with schools, health centers, markets, green areas, parks, Erdoğan emphasized that they have renewed the infrastructure of not only the places destroyed in the earthquake, but also all the cities in the region.
Erdoğan underlined that by establishing small industrial estates, they also consider employment as well as housing.
"We will complete the biggest housing and urban planning campaign in the history of the Republic," he said.
President Erdoğan reminded that they brought citizens together with their new homes in a short time in many previous disasters like earthquakes, floods and fires.
"I hope we will do the same here. (We have) done that in Van, Bingöl, Antalya, Manavgat, Muğla, Kütahya and Simav," Erdoğan stated.
He also revealed plans for Istanbul. "We recently announced the good news of a new urban transformation campaign in Istanbul. We presented an offer to our brothers from Istanbul living in risky buildings, half of the cost of the conversion will be covered by us as the state, and the half of it will be very affordable, conditional borrowing," he said.
"We aim not to leave any risky buildings in Istanbul in five years by transforming 300,000 residences per year with a study to be carried out, some on-site and some in reserve areas."