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Anadolu Agency is here with a summary of the latest developments on the coronavirus pandemic and other news in Turkey and around the world.
Coronavirus and other developments in Turkey
Turkey confirmed 29,136 more COVID-19 infections, including 5,203 symptomatic patients, in the past 24 hours, according to data from the Health Ministry released on Saturday.
Phase two trials of the Turkish-made COVID-19 vaccine will begin on December 25, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced.
The EU must rule out the pressure it faces from Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration, said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
It is extremely wrong that Turkey’s relations with the EU are captive to the tricks of one or two states, Erdogan said in a video link speech at the opening ceremony of the Manisa-Akhisar highway in western Turkey.
Unity and solidarity are the keys to success in all fields, from political struggle to efforts to expand rights and freedoms, Erdogan told a congress of a Bulgarian centrist political party.
Turkey’s presidency submitted a motion to parliament on Saturday to extend the deployment of troops in Libya for 18 months.
The Dayton Peace Agreement brought “much-needed peace” to the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina after years of fierce fighting, Cavusoglu said in a video message on Saturday.
Iran’s unfounded statements, directed at Turkey and the Turkish president, are unacceptable, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Saturday, according to diplomatic sources. On Twitter, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif claimed that the poem Erdogan recited during a ceremony in Azerbaijan was aimed at the territorial integrity of Iran.
Turkey’s communications director and speaker of parliament also condemned the Iranian authorities for unfair accusations against the Turkish president.
The Turkish Interior Minister criticized the Greek Coast Guard units for the mistreatment they inflicted on irregular migrants trying to cross into Europe. In a Twitter post addressed to the Greek Minister of Migration and Asylum, Notis Mitarachi, Suleyman Soylu shared video footage showing Greek coast guard units forcing two boats carrying migrants into Turkish territorial waters.
COVID-19 updates around the world
Mark Meadows, US President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, would have told Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Stephen Hahn to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the end of the day or that resign from this position.
The coronavirus count has continued to rise in Latin America, with countries reporting more than 1,800 more deaths and 84,000 new cases.
Turkey’s daily COVID-19 recoveries table was updated on Saturday. The name of the section of recoveries of recovered patients has been changed to number of recoveries, since, in addition to the patients who won the battle against the pandemic, the list of people whose quarantine period has also ended has been included.
Other global developments
Azerbaijan’s president said on Saturday that the Minsk group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has yet to play any role in resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which recently escalated after the Armenian forces launched attacks against Azerbaijani civilians and security personnel.
Azerbaijan on Saturday commemorated the 17th anniversary of the death of former President Heydar Aliyev. Aliyev, who held high-ranking positions in the Soviet Union, played a role as a savior for his country which had been facing the threat of civil war, the Nagorno-Karabakh struggle, and the post-independence economic crisis.
International human rights organizations on Friday urged the UK to support the case of genocide against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.
Iranian authorities on Saturday executed a dissident journalist accused of stoking protests against the regime in Iran in 2017. State media said Ruhollah Zam, director of the Amad News network, was hanged early Saturday morning.
Thousands of people gathered in the US capital of Washington, DC in support of President Donald Trump for the second time over the results of the November 3 presidential election.
On Saturday, the Afghan government floated the idea of executing the remaining steps of the crucial intra-Afghan negotiations with the Taliban inside Afghanistan.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was chosen among the 10 world leaders to showcase climate action at the high-level “Climate Action Summit”, said a statement from the prime minister’s office.
The Ethiopian government is launching a campaign to disarm the people residing in the restless northernmost region of Tigray.
The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, has called for peace in the Central African Republic (CAR), as he began the electoral campaign in the landlocked country to elect a legislature and a new president.
The UN apologized to Ethiopia for a widely reported incident in which its personnel breached security checks in the Tigray region.
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