Turkey targets return to normal life toward end of May – Erdogan

The coronavirus outbreak in Turkey is starting to reach a plateau, and the country aims to return to normal life after the end of Ramadan in late May, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday.

“This pandemic has become the biggest crisis since the Second World War, in terms of its economic consequences,” Erdogan said during a video conference with his AK Party’s officials, according to the state-owned Anadolu news agency.

The president said earlier that a four-day lockdown would be imposed in 31 cities from Thursday, after similar stay-at-home orders were enforced over the past two weekends.

Cases of Covid-19 have risen to 90,980 in Turkey, exceeding any country outside Europe and the United States, with the death toll at 2,140, Reuters said. Ankara has adopted increasingly tight measures to curb the spread.