Erdoğan falls asleep momentarily during Eid greeting, video goes viral
A video showing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan falling asleep for a moment while addressing his ruling AKP members has gone viral on social media. As the video was pre-recorded, journalist Fatih Altaylı said that the president's team's failure to crop out the moment was notable.
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Duvar English
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was seen falling asleep for a split second during a taped Eid al-Adha greeting video recorded for members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
The video quickly became viral on social media on July 21.
The president is seen closing his eyes and nodding off for a second between two sentences of his Eid address, quickly recovering to continue with his speech.
Turkish journalist Fatih Altaylı said in a column on July 22 that it was notable for Erdoğan's team to release the video without cutting out the moment in question as the video wasn't broadcast live.
Meanwhile, social media users took to Twitter to poke fun at the video, with one user quoting Erdoğan's words about former Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP).
Ayşe Aydoğdu recalled that Erdoğan had said in 2002 about the former prime minister: "Ecevit is seriously ill. He has health problems. He should resign already."
Another social media user said that Erdoğan was "rebooting himself," a process used to kickstart technological devices that suffer from erroneous operations.
The Turkish president has long been rumored to suffer from health problems, although the presidency hasn't made an official statement on the topic yet.