Turkey to Act on Liquidity, Scraps Court Hearings in Virus Curbs
Turkey to Act on Liquidity, Scraps Court Hearings in Virus Curbs
(Bloomberg) -- Turkey will take further steps to ensure access to liquidity amid the global coronavirus outbreak, Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak said.
The measures will be announced by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan this week, 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.
In the latest step, Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul said all non-urgent court hearings were postponed effectively from Monday, and notary services suspended, due to the virus.
After closing schools for two weeks, officials ordered all bars and clubs shut down from. 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
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