Thirty-six people have died in two major road crashes in Turkey, local media said today.
A coach crashed into a truck travelling in the opposite direction and then hit a minibus in eastern Erzincan province last night, killing 26 people and injuring 30, the state-run Anatolian news agency said.
The daily Hurriyetnewspaper said on its website that 10 people were killed and four were injured today when two cars, one of them with a German registration plate, collided in Ankara province.
These latest accidents prompted President Ahmet Necdet Sezer to take the unusual step of issuing a statement warning about the importance of road safety.
"I ask that our citizens are careful and follow traffic rules, respecting other people's lives as they respect their own," Mr Sezer said.
Turkey, which has one of the world's highest traffic fatality rates, last week suffered a high-speed train crash in which 39 people died. Parliament will debate that crash in a special session on August 4th.