Frustrated with the speculation surrounding his health, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday, Aug. 15, “Thank God, I am well. I’m learning ... from you about which hospital I was treated at and for what. Nothing as such happened though. I just took time to rest after Eid.”
On Aug. 12, Yurt, an opposition-leaning newspaper of minor circulation, ran the headline: “Was He at the Hospital?” The paper claimed that Erdogan became ill after going to the mosque on the first day of Eid to mark the end of Ramadan. “Although he has the custom of visiting his parents' graves on the eve of the Eid each year, Erdogan broke the tradition this year, and visited them a few days earlier. He disappeared after going to the Suleymaniye mosque for the Eid prayer,” the paper wrote.