ZAKARIA: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this very special meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations. We are very lucky to have with us a very special and distinguished guest. I met our current speaker before he was president, before he was prime minister, at the Davos that was held in New York after 9/11, when three Turkish politicians requested to see me to convince me that they were founding a new party and planning to modernize Turkey.
Tayyip Erdogan was one of them. He of course became prime minister of Turkey, and has recently been elected president of Turkey.
I think it would be fair to say, without any exaggeration, that President Erdogan is the most important Turkish political figure since Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the republic. Under his tenure as prime minister and now president, Turkey's economy has, depending on how you count it, tripled in size. Per capita GDP has quadrupled. Turkey has become one of the leading players in the region, if not the world.
I don't think there is any need to make much more of an introduction. As I said, you have before you the most important politician in Turkey's history since its founding father. And of course, Turkey sits at the midst of almost all the great currents that are roiling the Middle East, from Iran, to Syria, to Iraq, and of course, including the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
The format for this meeting is as follows. The president will make a few opening remarks from this podium. He will then join me at the -- on the stage. We'll have a conversation for about 15 minutes. We'll then open the conversation to all of you. And this is being streamed to our Washington offices as well. The entire meeting, his speech, comments with me and the comments in response to your questions are all on the record.
Without any further ado, his excellency, President Erdogan.