{"id":11732,"date":"2018-08-16T15:25:40","date_gmt":"2018-08-16T15:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=11732"},"modified":"2018-08-16T15:25:40","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T15:25:40","slug":"turkey-seeks-to-soothe-markets-over-tensions-with-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=11732","title":{"rendered":"Turkey seeks to soothe markets over tensions with US"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nISTANBUL: Turkey\u2019s finance minister Berat Albayrak will on Thursday seek to soothe the markets over the lira\u2019s dramatic fall in the wake of escalating tensions with the US.
Some 3,000 investors from the US, Europe and Asia registered to join a conference call with Albayrak at 1300 GMT, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
Albayrak, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u2019s son-in-law, was appointed last month and faces a tough task in getting the economy in order.
He will be hoping to make a stronger impression than last Friday when he made a long-planned presentation on Turkey\u2019s growth strategy at the very moment the lira was in freefall.
\u201cThis is Albayrak\u2019s last chance to prove three things: that he understands what is happening, that he can react accordingly and that he has influence over Erdogan,\u201d a European diplomatic source said on condition of anonymity.
The Turkish currency is being pummeled as a result of a diplomatic standoff with its NATO ally the US \u2014 over the detention by Ankara of an American pastor \u2014 which has snowballed into one of the worst crisis in bilateral ties in years.
The lira was being traded at 5.7 against the dollar and 6.5 against euro \u2014 after it lost nearly a quarter of its value on Friday and Monday.
The slight rebound comes after the Turkish central bank took a raft of measures to keep financial stability and ensure Turkish banks have sufficient liquidity.
However, analysts say such measures are far from satisfactory and call for a sharp hike in interest rates \u2014 strongly opposed by Erdogan\u2019s government which sees economic growth as its top priority.
\u201cSo far, Turkey does not seem to be changing its policies fast enough,\u201d Berenberg economist Holger Schmieding commented.
\u201cAs a result, the risk is mounting that the Turkish economy may contract for a while in the absence of a credible policy change fast.\u201d
Tensions between Ankara and Washington have risen after Turkey refused to free US pastor Andrew Brunson detained in October 2016 on charges of terror and espionage and who is currently under house arrest.
US President Donald Trump tweeted last Friday that Washington was doubling aluminum and steel tariffs for Ankara, a move that sent the lira into a tailspin.
In response, Erdogan has called for a boycott of US electronic goods such as the iPhone and Ankara has sharply hiked tariffs on some US products, in a move called \u201cregrettable\u201d by the White House.
Erdogan has shown no little willingness to compromise with the US and vowed to emerge victorious from the \u201ceconomic attack\u201d while slamming the lira crash as a \u201cpolitical plot.\u201d
He has also warned Ankara could start looking for new allies, new markets after its partnership with Washington may be in jeopardy.
Qatar, backed by Erdogan during the Saudi-led embargoes on the emirate in 2017, on Wednesday pledged to channel $15 billion direct investment into Turkey, a sign of burgeoning ties between the two countries.
Turkey has also in recent days shown appetite to repair ties with Europe after a crisis sparked by Ankara\u2019s crackdown on alleged plotters of the 2016 failed coup.
Erdogan is due to hold a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday a day after speaking with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
An Istanbul court ordered the release of Amnesty International\u2019s Turkey chair Taner Kilic Wednesday who has spent more than a year in jail over alleged links to the 2016 coup bid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISTANBUL: Turkey\u2019s finance minister Berat Albayrak will on Thursday seek to soothe the markets over the lira\u2019s dramatic fall in the wake of escalating tensions with the US.Some 3,000 investors from the US, Europe and Asia registered to join a conference call with Albayrak at 1300 GMT, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.Albayrak, President Recep…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":11733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}