[inaudible conversations] ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States and the president of the republic of turkey. Thank you very much, everybody. Please. I want to begin by welcoming the first lady with us today and the first lady of turkey. Thank you very much for being here. This is a great honor to have you. And we had a wonderful and very productive meeting. Before we start, i would like to thank president erdogan for releasing detainee golga who was in detention, in different forms of detention and i appreciate that very much. That was a very nice tribute and hell be coming back at some point in the not too distant future. So thats very good news for the United States and also very good news for turkey. Turkey, as everyone knows, is a great nato ally and a Strategic Partner of the United States around the world. Our economic relationship has tremendous potential and continues to expand and to grow, direct engagement of sip mro sip diplomacy for peace and prosperity and promise for our citizens. Over the course of the day, president erdogan and i had a frank and productive conversation on a range of very important topics, among those topics we discussed was the situation in syria. Last month i sent vicepresident pence, secretary of state pompeo is with us, National Security advisor obrien, thank you, to meet with president erdogan in the hopes of ending all of the hostilities. The negotiations were very successful and the United States and turkey achieved a tremendous amount on that day and i think were working toward getting it better and better. Its a complicated situation. Its been going on for hundreds of years. Today the ceasefire continues to hold and i want to thank the president for his partnership and cooperation as we work to build a more stable and peaceful and prosperous middle east. Weve assured each other that turkey will continue to uphold what its supposed to uphold. Im a big fan of the president , to tell you that, and i know that the ceasefire, while complicated, is moving forward and moving forward at a very rapid clip. Theres a lot of people that want to see that work after so many decades and so many centuries, you might say. The United States and turkey are working extensively on many other security issues. Turkey has the second Largest Armed forces in nato after the United States. And theyre a very strong second, i might add. Im pleased that turkey has been steadily increasing its defense spending and close to the 2 range unlike many other countries. At this moment there are eight over 28 of the countries that are current in terms of their obligation financially. Turkey has made a vital contribution to natos Resolute Support mission in afghanistan and its partnership was important to our destruction of the isis caliphate. In fact, just recently when we took out albadhdadi, and take him out, we did. Turkey knew that we were going over certain areas. They were very, very helpful, good for both countries, we really appreciate it. Were grateful to president erdogan and the citizens of turkey for their cooperation in the constant struggle against terrorism, he fights it like we do. Key to our security collaboration is our trade defense and military equipment program. American Foreign Military sales to turkey total many billions of dollars and turkey supplies Component Parts to Many American defense programs. They make parts of the frame, as an example, of the f35. Turkeys acquisition of sophisticated military equipment like this, creates challenges for us, and well talk about it today and in the future and hopefully well be able to resolve that situation. Weve asked our secretary of state, minister of Foreign Affairs and our respective National Security advisors to immediately work on resolving the s400 issue. Weve also recently agreed to work toward a 100 billion dollar twoway trade agreement. Secretary ross is here and i think weve made tremendous progress in that. We have a lot of trade with turkey, but it could be many times larger and turkey would like to see that and it would also be good for United States so we intend to bring it up to about 100 billion dollars. That would be four times what it is right now. Our goal is to expand commerce between the United States and turkey and reduce our trade deficit and ensure a truly fair and reciprocal relationship. We are just for those of you that have any interest, we discussed today also our trade agreement with china is moving along very rapidly. Well see what happens, but its moving along rapidly. China wants to make a deal that i can tell you. One of my chief priorities as president has been removing the barriers to american trade and investment and ending the illicit practices that harm our workers. We encourage turkey to further open its markets and they are doing that. They are doing that. Theyre very much toward American Goods and services. Our markets are open and turkey is opening up their markets and theyre opening up rapidly. Mr. President , as weve seen in recent weeks, the u. S. Turkey alliance can be a powerful force for security and stability. Not only in the middle east, but beyond. I look forward to working with you and to your representatives, i want to thank you very much all for being here. Ive gotten to become very familiar with all of you and i appreciate, youre doing a fantastic job for the people of turkey. And i look forward to continuing to find a common ground, harness common purpose and to advance the vital interest of our people and the abiding friendship between our nations. We have an abiding friendship he personally and with the great country of turkey and we look forward to moving that forward and making it an even bigger and better relationship. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. [applaus [applause] mr. President and my dear friends, distinguished ministers, secretaries, distinguished members of the press. I would like to at the onset salute you with my utmost emotions on behalf of myself and my nation. First and foremost, i would like to thank my dear friend, President Trump and the first lady of the United States for being such gracious hosts today. Weve managed to comprehensively discussion all the agendas with the president throughout the day and the discussions were very sincere. We all agreed that we need to further profound our cooperation and turks and americans relations should be on a strong and healthy foundation. I think we should remain resolved in order to open a chapter in our relations, with our deeply rooted alliance. We have stated our will to fight terrorist organizations a clear and a present danger upon our National Security. We have especially underlined the significance of dasch and with the death of baghdadi, we have detained several prisoners trying to free the prisons in syria and come to turkey and we have more than 200 who have been incarcerated and with the operation peace spring initiated october 9th, turkey took another step forward in fighting terrorism in a very resolute fashion. Our country, with this operation, an impact on the terrorist organizations such as ppk. In order to further strengthen our cooperation in syria, we believe we have gained a significant momentum with our october 17th agreement or memorandum. But in order to harm this memorandum, pkk and ypg are attacking our soldiers and civilians in a very provocative fashion and in the last 24 hours more than 19 attacks and harassing shots took place. And at the beginning of this month, a bomb was placed, an exclusive device was placed in outdoor market and as a result of the explosion, 13 civilian lives were lost. Despite all of those developments, in order to settle the conflict in syria in a sustained fashion, we are reiterating our commitment to our memorandum, our agreement with the United States. But some circles were empathetic toward these organizations are feeling deeply upset, deeply disturbed and using this information in order to cloud the understanding of the Public Opinion and that perception with the eventual gain or goal of harming our relations. And some historical developments and allegations are being used in order to dynamite our reciprocal relations, especially in the house of representatives, some of the resolutions that were passed on october 29th served this very purpose and hurt deeply the turkish nation and they have a potential of casting a deep shadow over our bilateral relations and i shared this information with mr. President. The Decision Makers in an incident that took place about 104 years ago should not be politicians, but historians. We have nothing to hide and have a full selfesteem in that regard, but i need to state clearly that we are as turkey open for dialog of discussion and debate and we have voiced our proposals to the Armenian Party to open the archives and establish a history commission. I believe the senate will take this take the United States out of this vicious cycle which happens as a result of the resolution of the house of representatives. Turkey and the United States stand side by side to fully eliminate dasch and once and for all. Turkey remains or it should be the most reliable partner of the United States in this region to achieve these targets. We are the only nato ally as turkey who has fought dasch in a very resolved fashion and so far we have detained 7684 foreign fighters and sent them back to their countries of origin and entry to 77,000 individuals who are considered to be affiliated with dasch terrorist organization and right now in our prisons, a total of 1,216 dasch members are incarcerated coming from 40 Different Countries. We have quite recently detained 287 individuals including women and children who have fled the prisons that pkk and wpg used to control ypg used to control. Our country is being showcased as the target and terrorist Organization Cost 304 turkey citizens to die and against which we are going to keep on fighting. And its very important to understand that the foreign fighters should be accepted by the countries of origin and we have the same understanding with President Trump in order to convince the countries of origin to do this. Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, we have a borderline kilometers with syria and when the war broke out nine years ago, we were the ones at the forefront, impacted heavily and maybe the most. Currently, we have over three million Syrian Refugees and four million refugees and weve spend until so far, europe only sent three billion euros despite a higher pledge. Through our ngos and similarly we are providing sustained humanitarian aid to the People Living on the syrian territory. That could be at 2015 at the g20 italian summit. I launched an appeal in order to launch a safe zone in syria. Because of the delay, tens of thousands of civilian lives were lost. This problem cannot continue forever and ever. Previously with our operation shield and Operation Olive Branch we have managed to clear an area of 4,000 square kilometers of terrorist presence and if we with the proposals of the president , its very important to realize our goals. Ive said operation shield and Operation Olive Branch and through these operations weve managed to 365,000 syrians back to their motherlands, and thanks to the operation, we have secured many towns and many villages and the rightful settlers are going back. We have shared our projects with President Trump and our several plans for the safe zone and with the support of the United Nations and International Community we can repatriot many more Syrian Refugees in the northern part of syria. Were talking about an area, 44 kilometers in length, and one million can be repay repatriated. The Terrorism Organization attempted to destroy the Constitutional Order of turkey with a failed coup attempt and it is a terrorist Organization Behind this failed coup. They have killed 251 individuals harming 2,193 citizens and they have even dared to bomb our parliament airborne. We have once again accentuated our expectations visavis the administration to once and for all eradicate such a presence here. And we have also discussed with President Trump how to achieve the 100 billion dollar trade volume threshold as soon as possible. We believe we should not confuse political incidents with commerce related aspirations and our secretaries of commerce are currently heavily invested in the achieving the 100 billion threshold. We hope well shy away with measures making it much more challenging for us to reach these targets and we have also quite naturally discussed our deeper legislation within the defense industry. Primarily the s400 system and the program we can only is your mount the hurdles that we experience through dialog. My dear friend previously stated back in the injustice orchestrated against turkey in terms of the acquisition of patriot missiles and we have clearly stated to President Trump that under suitable circumstances we could acquire patriot missiles as well. As turkey, we are ready and committed to sustain a very constructive dialog with the United States congress and this is an idea that ive shared with President Trump as well. With these thoughts in mind. I hope and pray that our discussions throughout the day with President Trump will yield the results. I would like to take this opportunity to thank President Trump for the kind and gracious hosts throughout the day on behalf of my personal safe and on behalf of my delegation, id like to thank you. [applause] thank you very much, mr. President. And i called up the senate. I asked a couple of our senators and we really ended up with five, and others wanting to come and well keep them apprised, but some of them joined us. They happen to be here, senator jim risch, thank you very much. Ted cruz, thank you very much, lindsey graham, lindsey, thank you. And rick scott, thank you, rick, very much, joni is here, joni ernst someplace, these are people that want to see peace in the middle east and i thought it would be appropriate for them to come over and met with the president and we had a lot of frank discussion and were dealing with a very big subject, a complex subject. Its been going on for centuries in many cases, but were making a lot of progress. Tremendous progress in the middle east. Okay. A couple of questions, go ahead. Aon, go ahead. Thank you, mr. President. Thank you. First id like to start getting your general reaction today to the impeachment hearings on the hill. Do you feel that the democrats made their case and how do you feel about the republicans performance. Youre talking about the witch hunt, is that what you mean . Is that what youre talking about . I hear its a joke. I havent watched, i havent watched one minute ive been with the president which is much more important as far as im concerned. This is a sham and shouldnt be allowed. It was a situation that was caused by people that shouldnt have allowed it to happen, and i want to find out who the is whistleblower because the whistleblower gave a lot of very incorrect information, including my call with the president of ukraine, which was a perfect call. And highly appropriate, and he wrote something that was much different than the fact. I want to find out why the ig, why would he have presented that when in fact all he had to do is check the call itself and he would have seen it. Im going to be releasing, i think, on thursday a second call, which actually was the first of the two, and youll make a determination as to what you think there. But ive heard just a report they said its all thirdhand information, nothing direct at all. It cant be direct because i never said it. And all they have to do is look very, very simply at the transcript. If you read the transcript. This was analyzed by great lawyers. This was analyzed by gregg jarrett, by mark levin, by everybody, they said that this statement that i made, the whole call that i made with the president of the ukraine was a perfect one. So that this country gets put through that, that we have to waste this gentlemans time by even think about it, talking about it, id much rather focus on peace in the middle east and i hear that its i hear that its a hoax and played as a hoax. Thats what i hear, but youll have to tell me. Go ahead. Then if i may on syria and peace in the middle east, president erdogan talked about repatriating Syrian Refugees back to their homeland. Have you had those discussions with european leaders since there are so many no, i think that frankly europe should be paying for this to a large extent, as of this moment turkeys been paying for most of it. I think the president was saying today, theyve spent over 40 billion dollars on the cost of that 40 billion. How much . 40. Thats what i said. Whatever, he spent a lot, okay . And throwing out the different numbers, i heard it was 40 billion. Is 40 billion correct . So 40 billion and ive heard that number from others and thats a lot. Europe has contributed about three. And a lot of these people would go all throughout europe, i mean, it would be a devastating situation for e