We are a lone country and we live in a very difficult region. We might be alone, but we are a proud, resistant and challenging country and we are the sole nation keeping this region on its feet. We are a lone nation but also a nation with a strong political gene, a nation whose history-making role and claims are incessantly continuing and will continue to do so in the future.

It’s resistant nations that live in tough regions; they recover those lands, keep them alive, put up great struggles and get into major showdowns. They do not beg, cry, bend over backwards, surrender or choose to remain standing by seeking the mercy of others.

They remain standing with their hearts, wisdom, strength, struggles, their own claims, plans and great marches. They are the ones always leaving their mark on historic milestones. Even if they pay the price for this, even if they face very heavy conditions, their character will never change. Because that nation knows that if it does change, it will be destroyed, it will be eliminated, and both the nation and the region will be destroyed.

Hence, we are the guards, the historic leaders of both this country and the region. We were this way for centuries, we are still the same, and we are going to continue to be this way for centuries to come. This fate is our responsibility. This is an obligation each one of us needs to undertake. This is how it is, regardless of whether you are this country’s leader, civil servant, scholar, tradesperson or artist.

Now, that fate, that political gene is calling us somewhere. It is calling us to stand up on our feet again, to bring this country forward and strengthen it, to build a region, to leave our mark on a new historic milestone, to start new and much greater struggles, and enter global showdowns. Don't take it the wrong way, but this showdown is going to happen, that struggle is going to be put up, Anatolia is going to host the "Third Great Rising" period whether we like it or not.

This is the reason behind the consecutive attacks on our country... This is the reason behind the attacks through the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) for the last four decades. This is the reason behind the projects to take us hostage and destroy us through the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETÖ). This is the reason behind plans to siege us from our southern border and to turn our country into a front. This is why they are activating all operational areas and groups located within the country. This is why they are targeting the leaders, cadres, circles and eventually this nation, who are carrying Turkey to the new historic rise.

But they were mistaken, they were shocked

We lost a vast region in the World War. Such a destruction was planned and implemented that they thought they entirely excluded us from history. According to them, the Byzantines were avenged, the Crusade Wars were avenged, and us reaching Europe's doors was avenged. They thought they took the revenge of a millennium with a single war.

It is with this belief that they entered Jerusalem, came to Istanbul, pillaged every corner of the region and divided Anatolia with this plan. They were going to keep "us" - whom they kept under tutelage throughout the 20th century - under control like this in the 21st century too.

Because, for them, we were "dangerous," because we are a history-making, region-building nation. They had believed that they had eternally destroyed this threat. Both internal and external control was planned and implemented accordingly.

But they were mistaken. They were shocked when that political gene took action. They monitored it with Europe, controlled it with the U.S., struck it from Iraq, from Syria, from the southeast, they struck us in the heart on July 15, 2016, but they could not stop this nation from awakening, coming to its senses, rediscovering its memory and taking action.

The latest decision taken by the U.S. administration, its sanctions on Justice Minister Abdülhamit Gül and Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, the real reason behind that appalling blackmail is not Pastor Andrew Brunson. It is not only our two ministers that have been targeted but the whole country!

If it was not for the pastor, they would have found another reason or they would have done all this without any reason at all. Was there a reason for the July 15 coup attempt? Those traitors tried to drag the country to a civil war, they tried to divide the country with their hands and when they failed, they evacuated them and took them under protection.

The great showdown is the change, the independence, the liberation I tried to explain above. It is Turkey's millennium-old regional mind taking action, quitting being the West's front country, drawing its own path, getting closer to the world's new rising powers, turning toward Asia for the first time, starting a great march. Because Turkey, which has set off for a great plan can no longer be stopped. This is what they are avenging. The showdown is greater than you think, because it will shape the upcoming centuries.

The U.S.'s two arms in this country are being cut off. The PKK and FETÖ are being eliminated, a relentless struggle is being put up. These two subjects are the reason behind the latest sanctions decision. It will continue, we must be ready for this. Even if we hand over Brunson today, another page is going to be opened, another crisis will be formed. A country that makes such threats to a country for an intelligence agent disguised as a pastor and is in cooperation with terrorist organizations in this country, while continuing to protect those people who rained down bullets at our country and people, committed murders, bombed our Parliament, crushed our people under tanks, is the clearest threat to this nation, to this country.

Therefore, a brand new fight has started, Regardless of our political identities, regardless of our ethnic or sectarian identities, regardless of our political background, a great showdown has started on the homeland axis, on the regional axis.

We are going to take action together, we are going to fight shoulder-to-shoulder; everybody who feels they belong to this country, this land, that deep political history, and everybody who is local must take action. The period of being confined to the old Turkey, the era of viewing these developments through that political language or view is over.

Because this is not an issue of internal politics. Because new attacks will follow and the showdown will exacerbate. The West lost its global monopoly for the first time in four centuries and entered a period of stagnation. But they will never again be able to get the power to rule the world alone. This showdown is not happening here alone, but throughout the entire world. Turkey has started its own historic march in this great breaking period and it will certainly reach a conclusion. The U.S. has become a joint threat for the world with all this instability.

The attacks are going to follow one after the other, but Turkey will never step back. The "relentless struggle" is no longer limited to just Anatolia, it is regional. The climate is getting rough, while our fists are getting tighter; as they regress, our rise is starting.

Do not forget, great marches, turns in history, rising periods, new establishments are made possible through great struggles. And this is achieved by history-making nations only. The issue is as clear as this.

The pastor is not the issue. Have we still not grasped that?