Turkey’s economy strong despite coup bid: Deputy PM

"Turkey’s economy strong despite coup bid: Deputy PM," hurriyetdailynews.com

Kurtulmuş image from article

Excerpt:

Turkey’s economy remains strong despite the July 15 failed coup attempt, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş said late on July 29.

“The negative impact of this [the July 15 coup attempt] on Turkey’s economy has been minimal. Thank God! Economic indicators have been improving upward since July 22,” Kurtulmuş said at a press conference in Ankara.

“This shows how structurally solid Turkey’s economy is,” he added.

Kurtulmuş praised the crisis management of state and government institutions, especially Turkey’s Central Bank and Borsa Istanbul in coping with a challenging volatility in the Turkish markets after the coup bid.

“It was very important that the Central Bank managed the process with good public diplomacy. It was also important that Borsa Istanbul did not operate agitatedly in this period,” he said.

Referring to solidarity between public and private institutions in the wake of the coup attempt, the minister said the resilience of those institutions was very positive for Turkey’s perception abroad. ...

Kurtulmuş warned that not everything was over yet in Turkey, saying the group blamed for the coup attempt, the Fethullah Terrorist Organization (FETÖ), would not give up despite facing failure.

“Now, they will try to drive Turkey into the corner through perception operations, especially in the Western world,” he said, highlighting the need for a coordinated effort against such operations.

“A pillar of these operations will be to intentionally create negative activities, comments and speculations about Turkey’s economy abroad. Another pillar will be propaganda on human rights,” he said.

“We need to form a well-performing economic diplomacy within the context of public diplomacy during the post-July 15 period,” he added.