Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday said that the continuation of “free, open, and rule-abiding” international trade and cargo transportation between countries would be vital for the flow of supply chain amid the novel Coronavirus outbreak.
Addressing the summit of the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States (Turkic Council) via teleconference, President Erdogan said that the measures, which were taken by individual countries to curb the spread of the virus, could negatively affect international trade, according to the media report.
The president further said, “For this reason, we should adopt the most practical solutions in the shortest time possible in areas such as transportation, customs, and border crossings by prioritizing the public health”.
The Turkish leader also said the world was facing a socio-economic crisis on a global scale because of the impacts of the pandemic.
“We need to intensify our cooperation to take concrete steps in this transport corridor and ensure the developments of a contact-less foreign trade and multi-modal transport systems,” Erdogan added.
The summit brought together the leaders of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan as well as Hungary which has observer status to discuss the ways of cooperation and exchange of views in the fight against the COVID-19, according to press reports.
Last month, Erdogan said that he would not stop migrants trying to cross Turkey’s border into Greece before advising Athens ‘these people won’t stay in Greece’ and to ‘let them pass into other European countries’.
More than 1,000 people have died from the novel coronavirus in Turkey, according to the health minister on Friday, as 4,747 new cases were recorded.
Fahrettin Koca shared the latest figures in an image on Twitter, showing 98 more people had died in the last 24 hours, pushing the total death toll to 1,006. With the new cases of COVID-19, Turkey has officially recorded a total of 47,029 people with the virus.
The global death toll from the coronavirus topped 100,000, according to the report.
China’s Wuhan city, where the pandemic began, is still testing residents regularly despite relaxing its tough two-month lockdown.
China has also ordered all hotels in the capital Beijing to ensure all guests provide negative coronavirus report. Beijing will require all arrivals to provide a negative nucleic acid report and green health code before checking in to hotels starting Sunday.