Turkish delegation visits Russia to discuss vaccines, tourism

A delegation of 10 Turkish officials, including Presidential spokesperson İbrahim Kalın, Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy and deputy health minister, has paid a visit to Russia to discuss tourism and the delivery of Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine.

Russia stopped flights to Turkey for 45 days after seeing a surge in the number of coronavirus cases in Turkey.

The delegation will discuss the measures that were taken in Turkey for tourism purposes and the decrease in the number of cases aiming to convince Russia to lift the flight ban. 

Another topic to be discussed in the talks is the supply of vaccines from Russia. Turkey and Russia had agreed on the supply of the Sputnik V vaccine.

Turkey has been using vaccines developed by China's Sinovac Biotech and Pfizer/BioNTech so far.

In April, Turkey approved Russia's coronavirus vaccine for emergency use.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said Turkey had signed a deal for 50 million Sputnik V doses that would start to arrive in May and help address a short-term drop in supply.

More than 15 million people have had at least one shot, while another 9 million have been fully inoculated.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), responsible for marketing Sputnik V, said that a Turkish firm would also produce the shot at its plants.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on May 5, discussed the fight against coronavirus and a Russian-made vaccine set to be used in Turkey. In the phone call, Putin stressed Russia's readiness to start the deliveries of the Sputnik V vaccine to Turkey this month, the Kremlin said in a statement.