Turkey suspends railway services to Iran over coronavirus concerns

Turkey has announced that it suspended railway services over its Iranian border due to the number of coronavirus cases in its eastern neighbor.

Turkish State Railways (TCDD) said in a written statement that passenger and freights trains between Turkey and Iran has been temporarily halted, starting from 5:00 p.m. local time (1400GMT) on Feb. 23.

"Reciprocal services between Turkey and Iran of the Trans-Asia Express and Van-Tehran passenger trains and freight trains were temporarily halted," the statement read.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca has also announced that flights from Iran would also cease from 8 p.m. local time (1700 GMT).

Another land crossing with the Azerbaijani autonomous region of Nakhchivan would also be closed.

On Feb. 21, Turkey introduced health checks on people arriving from Iran. Speaking in Istanbul, Koca said eight travelers had been turned back since then.

A staggering 50 people have died in the Iranian city of Qom from the new coronavirus this month, Iran's semiofficial ILNA news agency reported on Feb. 24.

The new death toll is significantly higher than the latest number of confirmed cases of infections that Iranian officials had reported just a few hours earlier and which stood at just 12 deaths out of 47 cases, according to state TV.

A lawmaker from Qom, Ahmad Amiriabadi Farahani, was quoted in ILNA saying that more than 250 people are in quarantine in the city, which is a popular place of religious study for Shiites from across Iran and other countries.

He said the 50 deaths date as far back as Feb. 13. Iran, however, first officially reported cases of the virus and its first deaths on Feb. 19.

Speaking to ILNA, Farahani said the situation in Qom is "not good".