Turkey Expected to be Out of Travel Red List

According to sources, Turkey is expected to be removed from the UK’s travel blacklist on Thursday, 26th August, as UK ministers prepare to reveal improvements to the traffic light system.

According to the Guardian, there is also pressure to relax restrictions on people traveling from Pakistan.

Passengers from these countries would be allowed back enter the UK as long as they tested negative for Covid prior to travel.

Some people will have to quarantine themselves at home for up to ten days, although those who were completely vaccinated in the UK, Europe, or the United States may be exempt.

The Guardian adds, “However, senior Whitehall sources downplayed any indication of a radical change, indicating that the news is unlikely to affect as many vacationers as past evaluations.”

“Government insiders told the Guardian that the red list was no longer seen as a device to momentarily halt passenger traffic, but rather as a more medium-term block,” it said.

The latest scientific data “supports our anticipation” that Turkey “would be removed from the red list at the future review,” according to the Turkish embassy in London.

It claimed that case numbers in Turkey were “declining and lower than in the United Kingdom,” and that the US, Germany, France, and Ireland were now allowing fully vaccinated Turks to enter.

The embassy stated in a statement that it expects the UK to take all of these developments into account and remove Turkey off the red list this week.

The all-party parliamentary group on Pakistan, led by Labour MP Yasmin Qureshi and Conservative MP Rehman Chishti, wrote to the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, pressing him to designate it as amber.

“We don’t expect this week’s tinkering with the traffic light status to dramatically impact things for us,” John Bevan, divisional senior vice president of dnata Travel, which owns Travel Republic, Travelbag, Netflights, and Sunmaster, told the Telegraph. If that happens, we’ll be delighted to see Turkey and the Maldives join the amber list, as both are popular with our clients and will allow more people to get a last-minute getaway in the sun before the schools reopen.

“However, what is actually required is a complete overhaul of how traffic signals are used to safely manage international transport. In October, the system will be reviewed, and our goal is that it will be discarded and replaced with something simpler.”

According to the Telegraph, Spain and France are expected to preserve their amber classification in the update.

Morocco, St Lucia, and Jamaica, according to Sky News, are “at risk” of being placed on the blacklist.