Turkey's foreign minister speaks to Hungarian, Serbian counterparts

By Merve Aydogan

ANKARA (AA) - Turkish foreign minister on Saturday spoke separately with his Hungarian and Serbian counterparts over the phone, according to diplomatic sources.

During these separate phone conversations, foreign ministers have reached an agreement to make joint arrangements for the recognition of vaccination certificates with aims to lift mutual travel restrictions, diplomatic sources said.

The agreement on vaccination certificates is to be coordinated by the Health Ministries of each country.

To date, Turkey has been giving the Sinovac and BioNTech jabs, with the first shipments of the Sputnik V vaccine expected to reach the country this month.

Turkey has so far administered over 24.88 million coronavirus vaccine jabs since a nationwide immunization campaign began on Jan. 14.

More than 14.56 million people have received their first doses, while over 10.32 million people have been fully vaccinated.

To stem the spread of the virus, Turkey, last week, began a nationwide lockdown until May 17.

Since December 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has claimed over 3.3 million lives in 192 countries and regions, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Over 157 million cases have been reported worldwide, with recoveries now over 93.1 million.

In a separate phone call, Minister Cavusoglu also spoke with his Qatari counterpart Muhammed bin Abdurrahman Al Sani.

Diplomatic sources told the two officials had addressed bilateral relations as well as the latest regional developments.