Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during opening ceremony of the 3rd runway of Istanbul Airport, the state guest house and the mosque in Istanbul, Turkey on June 14, 2020. ( Serhat Ça?da? - Anadolu
ISTANBUL: President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday Turkey had lost some ground in its battle with the coronavirus pandemic but a focus on hygiene, masks and social distancing will protect people and help the economy rebound in the second half of the year.
"The numbers in recent days show that we have lost our position in the fight against the epidemic," Erdogan said in a televised address. "But we aim to remove the pandemic from our agenda by respecting the cleaning, mask and distance rules."
Economic recovery signals have been "quite strong" since May and "we expect great momentum from the second half of the year," he added.
(Reporting by Jonathan Spicer and Irem Koca; editing by Jason Neely)
