The first edition of National Security Conferences, organized by the National Security Council chaired by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was held in Ankara on Tuesday.

Addressing the event at the Presidential Complex, Erdoğan outlined the progress Türkiye made in security and other fields despite multiple challenges and how they envisioned the future for the country as an influential power.

The conferences are organized upon the instructions of Erdoğan, and the Office of the Secretary-General of the National Security Council said they aim to deepen knowledge on national security matters and enhance viewpoints on those matters for harmony on the knowledge for administrators or relevant institutions.

In his speech, Erdoğan hailed the transformation of the National Security Council, which was once tasked with other issues such as "inspection of work of cinema and music.”

"This is one of the silent revolutions in the state administration now oriented on national will and civilian politics,” Erdoğan said.

"This is valuable both for Turkish democracy and national security,” Erdoğan said.

The council was once dominated by military brass, which employed it to deliver ultimatums to the governments in the dark times of military tutelage in the country, preceding the governments of Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AK Party).

Erdoğan stated that Türkiye has acquired power and is set to gain more thanks to the advantages of the executive presidency system inaugurated in 2018. The system streamlined Türkiye’s governance and sped up decision-making mechanisms, especially in matters of urgency like national security.

He noted Türkiye’s location beset with challenges and how its ancestors established states spanning from Europe to Central Asia.

"We have faced countless challenges (throughout history), but we always rose from the ashes like a phoenix after every fall. Today, we have nothing to rely on to maintain our state’s security other than our own power,” he said, adding that this was the understanding that led to the creation of the Republic of Türkiye and guided more than 40 years of counterterrorism efforts against the terrorist group PKK.

"We paid a heavy price, but we gained much more. Especially through our strategy to eradicate the terrorism in its source we adapted after the betrayal called July 15, we made great achievements both in the country and abroad,” he said, referring to the 2016 coup attempt by military infiltrators of Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ),” he said.

Erdoğan underlined that Turkish cross-border operations in Iraq and Syria "shattered the glass ceiling” (of acting upon instructions of other countries or relying on them for weaponry) and "launched a new era in our security paradigm.”

"Türkiye is no longer a country delivered a role in scenarios of others. It is now a country writing its own stories, a playmaker in its region,” Erdoğan emphasized. "They don’t let us live in these lands if they catch us off guard. We have no option but to stay strong (to survive),” he added.

He referred to the terror-free Türkiye initiative to end the PKK’s campaign of terrorism and said it was part of the strategic vision of the state in the new century and was beyond a mere security policy. "When the process is fully accomplished, it will strengthen our home front and open new doors for our nation,” Erdoğan stated.

"In our age's understanding of security, attacks on energy lines as well as cyberthreats that render the banking system inoperable directly fall within the scope of national security. On battlefields, software plays as decisive a role as tanks and missiles. We attach great importance to data security. When used correctly, artificial intelligence accelerates the decision-making process. Artificial intelligence also harbors serious risks. Handling artificial intelligence as a security issue with ethical, legal and social dimensions is a necessity rather than a choice,” Erdoğan also said.

Türkiye has been one of the countries that best reads battlefields, first notices the changing security paradigm and prepares itself for this early on. We have strived to continuously improve ourselves. By strengthening our defense industry, we have minimized our foreign dependency. We see the value of our capacity very clearly when we look at the crises surrounding us. We will build the big and powerful Türkiye, which finds its meaning in the phrase "The Century of Türkiye," step by step. Our source of inspiration is our nation,” he added.