Nobody can compete with us on environmentalism, Turkey's Erdoğan says

Nobody can compete with the Turkish government on environmentalism, the country's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan asserted earlier on November 15 in an apparent move to negate growing criticisms of the government over cutting down trees for recent road construction projects, Hürriyet Daily News reports.

“Nobody can criticize us for not showing sensitivity toward the environment. We have conducted the biggest project of the republic’s history concerning tree planting. We have freshly planted millions of trees and that is something that has not been done before. We have afforested an area as wide as that of Belgium,” Erdoğan is quoted by the news agency as saying on November15, while speaking at a tree planting ceremony as part of his launching of a campaign called “5 Million Trees for 5 Million University Students.”

“We are environmentalists; nobody can compete with us on environmentalism. We have set up 125 city forests. Number of national parks increased to 40 from 33 and of nature parks to 193 from 17. We will maintain such efforts,” Erdoğan is quoted as saying.