January 25th, Turkey received 6.5 million doses of vaccine from China, which was the second batch of Chinese vaccines received by the country.
From the outbreak of the epidemic to the current vaccination, China and Turkey have been maintaining close cooperation in the battle against the novel coronavirus.
Recently, the reporter of Global Times interviewed Emin Yonan, the Turkish ambassador to China, to listen to him talk about the anti-epidemic cooperation between the two countries.
“Turkey has begun to vaccinate Kohing Bio on a large scale. Our President and Minister of Health have been vaccinated with the first dose.
Our agreement with Kexing includes the procurement of 50 million doses of vaccines.” “Turkey has a total population of more than 80 million and plans to purchase different types of vaccines so that most of the country’s population can be immunized,” Ambassador Emin Yonan told the Global Times. We also plan to complete the third phase trial of a domestic vaccine in April.” Yonan said.
Turkey approved the emergency use of Chinese vaccines on January 13.
On December 30 last year, the first batch of 3 million doses of Chinese vaccine had arrived in Ankara.
Regarding some people in the West accusing China of “vaccine diplomacy”, Yonan said that Turkey strives to maintain a close dialogue with China on vaccine production and supply.
Vaccine cooperation should be carried out by every country, and diplomacy should contribute to the global fight against the epidemic.
He said that Turkish President Erdoğan has said on more than one occasion that the vaccine business should be left behind political and commercial interests and that vaccines should be regarded as the public property of mankind. Chinese leaders also said that they would make Chinese vaccines a global public product.
“We hope to deepen cooperation with China to ensure that all countries around the world have fair and reasonable access to vaccines, especially in developing countries.
The pandemic has taught everyone a lesson and let us value interdependence between countries.” Yonan said, “As a country that highlights the concerns of emerging countries, Turkey is grateful and supports China’s commitment to give priority to developing countries access to vaccines.
At this critical stage, it is vital for the whole world and humanity to adhere to multilateralism.
According to Yonan, at the beginning of the outbreak, Turkey and China provided each other with urgently needed protective equipment and medical supplies according to each other’s needs.
At the beginning of February last year, Turkey was one of the first countries to provide medical assistance to China, and vaccine cooperation is the latest example of the deepening cooperation between the two countries in the medical field.
Of course, due to the epidemic, many important areas of cooperation between the two countries, especially tourism, civil aviation and trade, will be seriously affected in 2020.
He hopes to achieve large-scale immunization as soon as possible through vaccination, and continue to deepen the strategic cooperation between the two countries this year.
In the interview, Yonan also mentioned that last month, freight trains from Turkey arrived in Xi’an, China, the first freight train from Turkey to China since the first transit to Turkey in November 2019, and it took only 12 days to arrive in Xi’an.” It is thanks to the efficient cooperation of Turkey, China and other transit countries that this distant dream has become a reality.
Yonan said that he visited Xi’an last December to attend the arrival ceremony of the freight train and met with government officials and business people in Shaanxi Province.
In his view, the further use of this railway transportation line will bring help to Turkish-Chinese bilateral economic relations.
Through these freight trains, the products of the two countries will reach each other more conveniently.”
The railway connection between China and Europe has become increasingly important during the epidemic, because freight trains play a key role in stabilizing the international logistics supply chain.”
