07 July 2020; MEMO: The German government’s Commissioner for Tourism, Thomas Bareiss, said Monday that tourism with Turkey will resume soon.
Bareiss told German broadcaster NTV that “every country should be treated fairly and I am pretty confident that tourism activity between Turkey and Germany will resume soon”.
According to the official, the government held fruitful discussions last week with the Turkish Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Mevlut Cavusoglu, and Culture and Tourism, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, in Berlin.
He praised the Turkish measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic, adding that “if the pandemic outlook improves in Turkey, we may ramp up preparations for the resumption of tourism activity”.
Bareiss said German officials have held continuous discussions and assessments with their Turkish counterparts to ensure safe travel.
Turkey has asked the European Union to correct its “mistake”, after Ankara was excluded from the list of countries that are safe to travel to in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
Cavusoglu said on Sunday that the EU had lifted travel restrictions for some countries; just because it has good political relations with them despite the high number of corona cases they were experiencing.
Last Tuesday, the European Union announced that borders will be reopened with 15 countries as of July where the COVID-19 situation is considered “good”.
