Erdoğan: Turkey making good progress on locally-developed COVID-19 vaccine

Turkey has been making good progress on locally-produced COVID-19 vaccine, and targeting giving doses by April at the latest, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in his address to the lawmakers during the weekly meeting of the ruling AK Party in the Grand National Assembly on Wednesday.

"We have made good progress on our local vaccine. We plan to bring our own vaccine in the market by April at least," Erdoğan told the Justice and Development (AK) Party's parliamentary group.

Turkey is closely following vaccine developments in China, Russia, the US and Europe, the president said.

"We have already given pre-orders for some of them. We hope to give the first shots of the vaccines by end of this month," he said.

He went on to say that the vaccine should be used for the common good of humanity regardless of political differences or commercial incentives.

"We believe that it does not make any sense for individual countries to secure themselves before the whole world is freed from the epidemic threat," he said taking a jab at developed nations.

Clinical tests of the Turkish vaccine are progressing smoothly with none of the volunteers exhibiting any side effects.

Up until now, 44 volunteers are participating in phase 1 trials of the ERUCOV-VAC vaccine.

Since it emerged last December in China, COVID-19 has infected over 59.82 million people and claimed more than 1.41 million lives worldwide, according to a tally by the US' Johns Hopkins University.

AK PARTY GOVERNMENT TO IMPLEMENT REFORM

Erdoğan said on Wednesday that his AK Party government will carry out reforms of the justice system together with its nationalist allies.
"We are accelerating implementing judicial reforms," Erdoğan said in a speech to AK Party members in parliament. "We will bring other reforms in packages to the parliament...(and) finalise the human rights action plan."
He also praised the AK Party's parliamentary alliance with the nationalist MHP, a day after MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli dismissed media speculation about rifts with the AK Party over the recent government talk of reforms.

KARABAKH CEASEFIRE EFFORTS COULD INCLUDE OTHERS: ERDOĞAN

Erdoğan said he discussed in a phone call with Russia's Vladimir Putin the possibility of expanding efforts to maintain the Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire to include other regional countries.

The ceasefire signed on Nov. 10 halted military action in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but occupied by the Armenian side 27 years ago, after the worst fighting in the region since the 1990s.

Turkey and Russia agreed to set up a joint centre in the region to monitor the ceasefire and Turkish parliament passed a troop deployment bill to send military observers.