Gul's trips to abroad cancelled due to his health condition

President Abdullah Gul has been prohibited from holding air travels and traveling abroad for two months by health professionals who have been treating him at Hacettepe University Hospital for a recent acute ear infection, his press office said. "In order to avoid the reoccurrence of the ear illness, our president has been advised to stay away from activities that could hurt his hearing functions, including air travel," the hospital said in a written statement. As a result, Gul's scheduled trip to Sweden on September 9, as well as his tour of the US in which he was supposed to represent Turkey at the 67th UN Nations General Assembly on September 18, have been canceled. Gul temporarily left hospital in the late afternoon yesterday, and received Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Chief of General Staff Gen. Necdet Ozel at the Presidential Palace as planned, but returned to the hospital later in the day. Earlier in the day, Erdogan visited Gul yesterday at the hospital and stayed there for almost an hour.