The Turkish National Police has reportedly formed a Special Operations Command to serve the lavish Presidential Palace in the capital Ankara amid the strengthened signs of an economic collapse in Turkey.
Turkey’s currency, the Turkish Lira, has fallen to a record low against the dollar amid concerns about an outflow of investor capital and the country’s ability to manage the situation. The Turkish Lira dropped to over 4,80 per dollar on Wednesday, down some 5 percent since Tuesday.
According to a report by online news outlet Gazete Duvar, the decision for a special police unit to serve at the 1,100-room Presidential Palace of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the capital was approved in Turkish Parliament on April 9. Currently, a special commando unit works with the presidential guards to maintain the palace’s security.
Known as AKsaray (White Palace), the building, which cost $615 million, spans more than 150,000 sq m (1.6m sq ft) of land and was completed in 2014.
Meanwhile, the Turkish Central Bank is under pressure to hold an emergency meeting to sharply increase rates before a scheduled monetary policy meeting on June 7, but is seen to be reluctant as President Erdoğan wants rates low. Higher rates can support a currency and ease inflation, but also hinder economic growth by making borrowing more expensive.
Turkey’s Energy Minister, Erdoğan’s son-in-law Berat Albayrak, has told the media that the recent sharp drop in the value of the lira was the result of the machinations of Turkey’s enemies, according to report by Yarın Haber on Wednesday. “The Turkish economy rests on very healthy and strong foundations,” Albayrak claimed and added that “We are talking here about a very open and clear operation against Turkey.”
“Everyone knows this: they’re cutting off their own arms, that is, foreign sources are doing themselves financial damage to affect Turkey’s political agenda through the economy,” Albayrak continued. “They are trying to trim Turkey’s beard. I tell you that after June 25, Turkey’s beard will grow back, but some people’s arms will remain on the table,” he said.
The lira has lost more than 22 percent of its value against the dollar since the start of the year. The risk is that will increase the price of imports, making Turkish people effectively poorer. It could also encourage more investors to pull their money out if they expect that the value of their investments to drop as the currency declines.
However, İstanbul Stock Exchange issued a statement late Tuesday saying that it had exchanged all but its short term foreign exchange needs into Turkish liras in the wake of a precipitous drop in the value of the currency. “As a sign of our trust and support in the Turkish lira, as of today our stock market has changed all its foreign exchange assets apart from what is needed in the short term into Turkish lira,” said in a statement.
There was no mention of how much these assets amounted to, and the president of the stock exchange said he did not know when questioned in a television interview on Wednesday. The statement also blamed the currency crisis on “speculation aimed at making the country’s economy look negative before the election.”
Also on Wednesday, foreign exchange bureaus in the İstanbul’s financial hub of Tahtakale switched off their signs and temporarily stopped trading on Wednesday amidst an extreme dive in the price of the lira, according to a report by Cumhuriyet daily.
The Turkish Lira dropped from 4,10 to the dollar at the start of May to a high of 4,92 to the dollar on Wednesday. The Turkish Lira has lost 22,3 percent of its value since the start of the year, a figure only exceeded by the Argentinian peso, which has gone down by 23,3 percent.
The post Turkey’s lavish presidential palace gets special operations command amid economic collapse appeared first on Stockholm Center for Freedom.
from Stockholm Center for Freedom https://stockholmcf.org/turkeys-lavish-presidential-palace-gets-special-operations-command-amid-economic-collapse/
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