Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will not be able to attend the European Political Community Summit to be held in Granada Oct. 5-6 and other programs on Wednesday and Thursday because of a cold, the T24 news website reported.
Erdoğan, 69, had spoken on the phone with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who invited him to the summit in Granada, where the recent conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region was to be be discussed.
Erdoğan would normally have traveled to Spain on Thursday if he had not fallen ill.
Erdoğan will not also be able to speak at his party’s weekly parliamentary group meeting on Wednesday due to his illness.
In April Erdoğan stayed home for three days after he suddenly fell ill during a TV interview due to a stomach ailment that interrupted his campaign for re-election and led to further speculation about his health.
Turkey’s health minister said at the time that Erdoğan was suffering from gastroenteritis.
Rumors about Erdoğan’s health have been circulating since he underwent two gastrointestinal surgeries in 2011 and 2012.
The operations went well but left him with a slight hitch in his gait that appears to have fed some of the social media speculation.
Turkey does not publicize the results of its leaders’ health evaluations and makes it illegal to “insult the president.”