Daesh stronghold Al-Bab almost captured: Erdoğan

Turkish President Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan spoke about Turkey's energy consumption, economical developments and terrorism while delivering a speech at the opening of a natural gas terminal in the coastal town of Izmır.

Erdoğan announced that the Free Syrian Army, with the backing of Turkish forces, would soon capture Al-Bab.

“We will root out terrorism. The Al-Bab operation is almost complete,” said Erdoğan.

Turkey ranks 8th in the world for LNG imports. Turkey's 2016 energy consumption is two times higher than what it was in 2002.

“Energy demand will increase. Our growth rate and our energy consumption rate have increased at the same rate. As we maximize our own resources, we must form alternative energy sources. Unfortunately, in natural gas, we are dependent on the outside. We have to go to source diversity,” said Erdoğan.

Erdoğan expressed how important the young population is for the nation. He stated: “We may not have oil or natural gas, but we have an advantage. We are determined to make Turkey one of the top 10 economies in the world. The economic power you can have is the youth. We can reach this goal by working together."

“The past 14 years have been a success story for Turkey. Over the last three and a half years, we have not strayed from Turkey's development agenda despite facing regional conflict, terrorism, social turmoil and economic crisis,” he continued.

The president emphasized AK Party's achievements in building Istanbul's superstructures to ease transportation.

“On Tuesday we unveiled the Eurasia Tunnel. There was only one way to cross the Bosphorus, but in 14 years we developed three new ways. The Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, Marmaray and the Eurasia tunnel,” said Erdoğan.