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Turkey Suspends Mosque Prayers, Court Hearings to Halt Virus

Turkey Suspends Mosque Prayers, Court Hearings to Halt Virus

(Bloomberg) -- Turkey suspended public prayers at mosques in the latest dramatic measure to fight the global coronavirus outbreak.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will also announce financial measures this week to ensure access to liquidity, Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak said on Twitter on Monday. Turkey has 18 confirmed cases of the disease, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said in a tweet, and is undertaking more measures to mitigate its spread.

While mosques will remain open, no public prayers, including on Fridays, will be held, Ali Erbas, head of Turkey’s religious affairs directorate, said Monday. Turkey has more than 80,000 mosques and tens of thousands of small masjids where Muslims pray together.

The measure marks one of the most serious steps yet taken by Turkey to decrease the risk of the deadly virus.

In another step, Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul said all non-urgent court hearings were postponed from Monday, and notary services suspended, due to the virus.

After closing schools for two weeks, officials ordered all bars and clubs shut down. It also placed about 10,000 citizens who returned from a religious pilgrimage to Mecca under quarantine after tracing a confirmed case to the Saudi Arabia trip.

Turkey has already suspended flights to several European countries in an attempt to curb the outbreak, and is making plans to evacuate its citizens from Europe.

Erdogan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron will hold a teleconference on Tuesday to discuss improved cooperation to stem the flow of refugees to Europe from Turkey. Originally they were set to meet in Istanbul, but the health emergency forced a change in plans.

--With assistance from Inci Ozbek and Cagan Koc.

To contact the reporters on this story: Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara at shacaoglu@bloomberg.net;Firat Kozok in Ankara at fkozok@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Onur Ant at oant@bloomberg.net, Mark Williams, Paul Abelsky

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