Turkey’s president keeps the active profile despite the coronavirus challenges across the globe. Mr Erdogan spoke to 19 world leaders over the phone and joined three summits via teleconference since the start of the outbreak.
Turkish president’s official Twitter shared information on Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s contacts with the international community. While the planet lives under restrictions, the governments continue to work, Yeni Safak reports.
Over months of coronacrisis, Mr Erdogan has held phone conversations with the top political figures of China, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Ethiopia, Georgia, Japan, the US, Russia, France, Uzbekistan, Iran, Italy, Ecuador, Somalia, Canada, Germany and Qatar.
In mid-March Erdogan held a quadrilateral meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. In addition, March 26 became the important date of the first-ever virtual gathering of G20 leaders on the COVID-19.
Turkey’s president also attended an extraordinary videoconference summit of the Turkic Council on cooperation and solidarity against the novel pathogen on April 10. Erdogan insists that the Turkish government is the only one body, which is responsible for coordination of the humanitarian aid amid the coronacrisis.
The Turkish health ministry has registered nearly 105,000 cases of COVID-19, with the nationwide death toll at 2,600 and near 22,000 recoveries.
Since the start of the epidemic, more than 2.78 million cases have been reported in 185 countries and regions. Europe and the US are the world’s hardest-hit areas so far while the global death toll is more than to 195,000 deaths, while recoveries are nearing 766,000, according to figures compiled by the US-based Johns Hopkins University.