Istanbul, Jun 21 (IANS): Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the recent figures signalled that Turkey "lost some position" in its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

"But I believe that we will remove the pandemic from our agenda in a short time by obeying the hygiene, mask and distancing rules," Erdogan said at a televised speech in Istanbul on Saturday, Xinhua news agency reported.

On June 1, the Turkish government allowed cafes, restaurants, sports facilities, parks, beaches, and museums to reopen and partially lifted restrictions on international and domestic travels in line with the normalization process.

Soon after, the number of new coronavirus cases started to pose an upward trend across the country.

Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca on Friday, however, announced that the daily increase of coronavirus cases started to decline again in Turkey's biggest city Istanbul and the capital Ankara.

Turkey reported 1,214 new COVID-19 cases and 23 more deaths the previous day, taking the tally of infections to 185,245, and the death toll to 4,905.