Premier Erdogan Announces His Party's Election Declaration

ANKARA - Prime Minister and Chairman of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party Recep Tayyip Erdogan made Sunday his party's election declaration, saying that AK Party aimed at taking its achievements and experience over the last five years to a next level.
Erdogan said that their election declaration was based on the idea to firmly continue structural reforms that have been made since 2002.
Erdogan noted that as Turkey drew near to the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the republic, Turkish people deserved a civilian constitution made through compromise and added that his party was working on this issue.
"The new constitution should strengthen the basic principles of the our republic, namely democracy, secularism and social state under the rule of law. It should effectively protect and guarantee basic individual rights and freedoms in line with standards laid down by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights. The new constitution should also be brief, open and clear, and relations between legislative, executive and judicial powers should be well-defined," Erdogan said.
"Authorities of the president should be re-defined with an eye to further reduce them and an adequate parliamentary system should be established," he noted, adding that necessary laws would be passed to ensure the democratization of political life.
Premier pledged to keep up with fiscal discipline to sustain macro economic stability and growth.
"We have normalized macro economic balances and now we aim at doing the same for micro economic balances and our target for the year 2013 is to reach 10 thousand USD per capita, 800 billion USD in GDP and 200 billion USD in exports," Erdogan said.
Touching on Turkey's European Union membership bid, Erdogan said that AK Party evaluated the relations both in bilateral terms and through a strategic vision that includes global and regional peace and order.
"EU membership negotiations is both an integration process and a process of restructuring and elevating Turkey's political, economic, social and legal standards," Erdogan said.
"Turkey's accession to the Union will strengthen the EU if the Union would really be a platform for alliance of civilizations," Erdogan added.
Erdogan also pledged that AK Party would maintain its resolved commitment for the EU membership process.