Free Republic

Turkey’s lira fell as much as 5% on Wednesday (23 May '18), and it’s lost more than a fifth of its value this year... On Wednesday the (Turkish Central) bank lifted a key lending rate to 16.5% from 13.5%... Mr. Erdogan has wanted to keep interest rates low before the June 24 parliamentary and presidential elections when he hopes to consolidate even more power.

There has been little room for optimism in recent predictions on Turkey’s economy, but even among pessimistic company, one strategist’s comments on Turkey to Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung came off as bleak. Turkey has already entered an economic crisis and can expect a “massive” fall in the value of the Turkish lira by the period after the June 24 elections “at the latest,” Turkish daily Cumhuriyet quoted economist Russell Napier as saying. After years of steady decline, the lira’s fall has accelerated sharply in recent weeks, repeatedly hitting record lows against the dollar and leading losses in emerging markets...

Gauging the value of the Turkish lira against the US dollar has required the power of divination so far this year. Anxiety is high as Turks wait to see whether the lira will tumble more and reach the once-unimaginable level of 4 lira per $1. snip- Now, 4 lira to a dollar is entirely possible and is seen as a harbinger of the big financial crisis to come. snip- The data indicates Turkey will be facing an inevitable financial collapse or at least a severe economic crisis this year. Such a crisis will worsen the security situation in Turkey, which...

Amid financial hardship, Erdogan looks to Qatar as 'rich daddy' Zülfikar Doğan Posted December 29, 2015 A series of controversial steps in the region has left Turkey increasingly isolated in its neighborhood. As a result, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has gone on a hunt for new "friends." Normalizing ties with Israel is now back on the agenda. The second door the government has knocked on is Qatar's. Yet, even Qatar's friendship could not stop the Arab League from adopting a joint statement last week condemning the Turkish troop deployment in Bashiqa, near Mosul, and urging Ankara to...

s this a chain reaction or mass epidemic? Either way, the fact remains - the political upheavals in the Muslim world that began in Tunisia swept across North Africa and Syria, and now a wave of instability has reached Turkey. A member of the Presidium of the Academy of Geopolitical Issues Araik Stepanyan analyzed this complex, ambiguous situation in the country. "We will identify the external and internal factors that have caused, for the lack of a better word, social unrest in Turkey. Internal factors have deep roots. The main reason is the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the...