Turkey not to have problem in supply of COVID-19 vaccines: President

ISTANBUL

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on April 30 said he believes that Turkey will not have a problem in the supply of COVID-19 vaccines and that he will discuss with Russian President Vladimir Putin if required on the issue of the delivery of Sputnik V vaccines to the country.

“I do not accept that we will have any difficulties in vaccine supply,” Erdoğan told reporters after Friday prayers.

“We have enough vaccines. The Sputnik vaccine is coming from Russia. If necessary, we will discuss this with Mr. President. A very serious amount of Sputnik vaccine will come from Russia after our discussion with Mr. Putin,” he stated.

Erdoğan said he will also have a discussion with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the first half of May on the issue of vaccines.

There are promises made for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines as well, he added.

The president noted that the local vaccine of Turkey will likely pass to the manufacturing phase in September or November.

Earlier this week, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced that Turkey signed an agreement for a total of 50 million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine.

Turkey will receive those Russian injections within six months, with the first deliveries arriving in May, Koca had said.

Erdoğan does not expect results from next UN-led Cyprus talks

The president also touched on the issue of the failure on the two-day-long U.N.-led Cyprus conference in Geneva.

Referring to the conference on Cyprus, Erdoğan said he does not believe a U.N.-led meeting on restarting peace talks will yield results.

“Now it’s been pushed back two-three months, but I again don’t believe any result will be achieved, because they are not honest,” he said.

He recalled that the Greek side said no to the Annan Plan in 2014 after months of negotiations. “They lied, they cheated,” he said, referring to the talks in 2014.

“These are liars, they are not honest. They do the same again. It is not possible to come to an agreement with them unless they act honestly,” the president said.