President Tayyip Erdogan rejected the resignation on Sunday of Turkey’s interior minister, who said he was stepping down in the wake of a short-notice coronavirus lockdown which sent people rushing to shops to stock up on supplies, Reuters reported.
Authorities declared the 48-hour curfew in dozens of cities shortly before 10 pm on Friday, giving millions of people just two hours’ notice and prompting a wave of desperate last-minute buying.
“The incidents that occurred ahead of the implementation of the curfew were not befitting the perfect management of the outbreak,” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said in statement on Twitter in which he said he was resigning.
Erdogan, however, judged it was not “appropriate” for Soylu to resign and the minister would continue in his position, the presidency said shortly afterwards.
Soylu’s statement came just before the end of the weekend lockdown in 31 provinces across Turkey, including its largest city and commercial hub Istanbul, home to 16 million residents.
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