'We walk to future with inspiration from history', Turkish PM

Speaking his Justice & Development (AK) Party's meeting in Turkey's western Mugla province, Erdogan said reffering to the recent incidents in Egypt and Syria, "If we remained silent towards the incidents in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Afghanistan and Somalia, if we did not help the victims of the earthquakes in the Philippines, Haiti and Georgia, we could not be a powerful country, and could not grow our economy." Noting that powerful countries had friends as well as opponents, Erdogan said that Turkey was known as a country which advocated for the rightness, stood by the right one and struggled for right values.  Also touching on Turkey's tourism, the prime minister said that Turkey had been hosting about 13 million tourists yearly when they took office, adding that this figure increased to 35.7 million in the end of 2012.  "Some people said that none of the tourists would visit Turkey when the AK Party took the power and that the party would ban tourism," noted Erdogan, adding that tourism income had been about 8.5 billion USD on that period, however today it reached 29 billion USD. The prime minister said Turkey would outpace the year of 2012 both in terms of tourist number and tourism income.