Ankara wants region to become ‘island of peace’

Turkey wants to resolve conflicts and make more friends while turning its region into an "island of peace", President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday.

Speaking to thousands of supporters at a party congress held during a new surge in coronavirus cases, Erdogan also tried to reassure investors spooked by his dismissal of his market-friendly central bank chief, saying Turkey’s economy will prevail.

Turkey has been at loggerheads with Nato allies as well as Arab rivals in the Middle East, angry at Ankara’s increasingly assertive foreign policy. But in the past few months, Turkish officials have sought to lower the temperature with frequent references to turning a "new page" in relations.

This month Turkey said it had established diplomatic contact with rival Egypt for the first time since 2013. "We are determined to increase the number of our friends and resolve hostilities in the region, turning it into an island of peace," Erdogan told his ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) congress in Ankara.

Despite a big jump in new Covid-19 cases, which reached 26,000 on Tuesday, the congress was packed with thousands of AKP members and delegates who travelled from across the country, drawing criticism online. But Erdogan has talked up Wednesday’s address as an important moment in Turkish politics in which he intended to lay out the country’s future course.